Ghost Town (2008)

I just finished seeing this one the other day; I thought it was more clever than other films which are similar. It is a comedy romance film with a fantasy element to it. It was put together well by writer/director David Koepp who has a fairly creative mind. He directed the film Secret Window (2004) with Johnny Depp. Perhaps he is better known as a writer, his resume includes: Angels & Demons (2009), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), Spider-Man (2002), and Jurassic Park (1993) among others. He also had written the screenplay for Ghost Town along with John Kamps.

The main cast of the film is pretty small, but it focuses on the afterlife among the living. It sets up some of the comedy, but the film is filled with a few dramatic moments as well. Greg Kinnear stars as Frank Herlihy a man who is bitter about what he did while he was still alive, and in particular his relationship with his former wife Gwen played by Téa Leoni . He returns to haunt dentist Bertram Pincus D.D.S. played by British actor Ricky Gervais since he has the ability to see ghosts from something that happens to him. His character is very bitter and doesn’t care for people in general. I never really cared for him as an actor, however in this role he seemed to fit pretty well.

There are a few others that appear in this such as Aasif Mandvi as Dr. Prashar, Bridget Moloney as the Receptionist, Bill Campbell as Richard, Dana Ivey as Marjorie Pickthall, Jeff Hiller as the Naked Guy, Betty Gilpin as the WWII Nurse, Kristen Wiig as the Surgeon, and Claire Lautier as the Upper East Side Lady.

The tagline that was used was “He sees dead people… and they annoy him”

I think overall you will find this to be worthwhile to see, it took a little bit to get into the story, and to see where they were going with the characters. But, once the film established that, it seemed to come together by the ending which was quite interesting.