Witty Repartee with Dead People

Watch out, America, there’s a new comedic genius in town, and his name is Ricky Gervais. He’s gonna make you laugh….

The bone-dry funny man, the star of the BBC’s The Office and HBO’s Extras, makes his stateside debut as a silver screen leading man in Ghost Town, a supernatural comedy that’s part Ghost, party The Sixth Sense, part SNL sketch (minus the L, natch).

Gervais plays Dr. Bertram Pincus, orthodontist by day, ghost whisperer by night, misanthrope all the time.

Yeah, I called him a ghost whisperer, alright, which is something he becomes after a routine colonoscopy (for which he demands to be anesthetized) kills him.

“Uh, you died,” his doctor, hilariously played by SNL’s Kristen Wiig, informs him.

“I died?”

“A little bit.”

“For how long?”

“Seven minutes....”

“I died for seven minutes?!”

“Everybody dies….”

The side effect of his temporary death leaves the good doctor able to see and able to talk to ghosts – ghosts who all want something from him, particularly Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), who pesters him into breaking up his widow Gwen’s (Téa Leoni) impending marriage.

That puts Pincus, who already rather dislikes the living, squarely in the middle of a triangle, with spirited and unexpected results.

Ghost Town’s an uneven movie made thoroughly enjoyable by Gervais’ charm. Keep that in mind and you definitely will enjoy it.

My Rating **1/2

Photo: ReelzChannel.com.