GHOST TOWN REVIEW

There is something in structual engineering – I think it’s called a perfect load, or balanced load – but it’s what happens when every corner of a building is supporting exactly 25% of the weight. Of course, such a building looks exactly like a very boring square box, but every component does what it’s supposed to do. Nothing leans, there are no weird gaps, no one side holds more than the other. A perfect, non-offensive container for suitable habitation.

So it is with this movie. Every element is perfectly designed and test-marketed for the widest range of people to receive the maximum amount of enjoyment from the movie. You could set your watch by the page 10 setup, the page 27 complication, the page 60 reversal, and the third act in which the characters all learn something. It is completely satisfying and a picture perfect example of studio filmmaking in today’s culture.

So therefore, it is rather dull.

But not dull as in, “I hate it”; more “safety” dull, no sharp corners to hurt anyone. It is the Perfect date movie, or the one everyone can agree on when you have a large group of people you hardly know all going out together for some reason. You can run in the house with it and your mother won’t worry about you losing an eye.

Its casting is scientifically calculated to be both instantly recognizable and charmingly non-offensive. Greg Kinnear is the smarmy ass who dies off the top and spends the rest of the movie trying to keep his widow from marrying this other lawyer. And so he is lovable, smarmy, and charmingly ass-like. Tea Leoni is the instantly relatable smart, yet vulnerable, career egyptologist who is torn between a bunch of asshole men to fall for. And finally, Ricky Gervais plays a lovable prick who hates everyone and refuses to help anyone, which becomes more problematic when he can see ghosts who can travel through walls and he can’t shut them out. And this all falls neatly into studio execs’ demos of the elements needed for a money-making rom-com.

But the crafting doesn’t stop there.

It has the latest in comedy film dialogue, perfected over the years by Ricky Gervais (Bertram), in which the two characters talk over each other simultaneously so they end up saying something new and blocking each other at the same time. On the page, I assume it would look like this:

Bertram/Doctor I died?/No.

Bertram/Doctor No?/Yes.

Bertram/Doctor What?/I don’t know…

Bertram/Doctor did I or didn’t I/You didn’t might have…

The cringey awkward silences and what is said/not said are a goldmine of chuckles. This technique was used at least four times in the movie, and Ricky Gervais was in on every one of them.

This movie also has the latest in sight gags (giant dog / naked ghost / bus accidents) which are pretty much trailer fodder, since they don’t really move the story forward.

And finally, it has the ersatz Judd Apatowian “heart,” which means that ultimately this romantic comedy is as sappy as a New England Maple forest in March. Ricky plays a giant prick of a dentist, who has a bunch of ghosts teach him what it is to be human, which he successfully learns while he falls for Tea Leoni in three or four scenes. Everyone learns something and the film asks the fundmental question, “what do you get out of being an ass your whole life?”

So this movie is a techinal acheievement for the military entertainment complex in its campaign to hit the largest number of targets and surgically deliver them laughs and heart according to a mass comsumer demographic in the midst of an economic catastrophe and shifting film business model.

Of course, we all know that it cost 20 million to make, opened in 1500 theatres, and only made 5.17 Million its opening weekend. We can comfort the people involved by saying, “it should make its money back overseas.”

And the fact that we all know that, and it is part of our opening weekend review, says that we have long ago devoured our own tail. Now we survive on the flotsam of a culture imploded. When something mildly decent enters the scene, we celebrate it as a “good” since all things “standard” are really complete “crap.” We have lowered the bar so much that even average can jump the hurdles and win a medal.

Now I am going to pop in my Buster Keaton collection on DVD, write screenplays that will never been seen, drink wine, and eat sour grapes, as I watch that square box of a building going up across the street.

Dean Haglund