Tea Leoni and Ghost Town UK Film Release and Review

Posted by fjgirls in October 23rd, 2008

Ghost Town is officially released in the UK this friday and stars Tea Leoni providing the female interest with Ricky Gervais playing his first lead role. The film is billed as a paranormal comedy. The whole package is directed by David Koepp. It’s an eagerly anticipated film due to the Gervais lead and we thought we would take a closer look.

Tea Leoni photo by Kubolski

The Plot:

A dentist that is not a people person? by the name of Bertram Pincus (Gervais) goes into hopsital for an operation, is unaware that during this operation he had a near death experience and was technically dead for 7 minutes, was miraculously revived and consequently has gained the ability to see dead people in the form of ghosts hence the films name.

He starts bumping into more and more ghosts that pester him to communicate with their loved ones, so they can RIP and depart this earth! One in particular who befriends Bertram tries to get Bertram to communicate with his widow Gwen (Tea Leoni) to try to break up the new marriage on the horizon. Things get more hectic as more ghosts arrive on the scene and drive him bonkers, chasing him down the road and invading his flat with their requests. We could go on here, but you get the general picture.

Verdict.

With Ricky Gervais of The Office and Extras fame in the line up, and the lovely Tea Leoni this looks to be something definetly worth seeing. Gervais is a hugely talented comic genius. If you’ve seen Gervais in “The Office” UK Version, and also live doing one of his stand up routines, if his distinctly British humour appeals, it’s a killer. This is one of the few comedians that can induce such laughter out of us, it is painful to laugh any more.

The critics seem to like this film and we are talking the majority, and we can see why, certainly the story line is a good one and sounds on paper to be a laugh a minute. Characters and acting are good, direction more of the same, all set in a glorious backdrop of Manhattan in the Autumn/Fall. Technically this is a good film hence the critics thumbs up, but here’s where the problem starts, and its a major one, there’s just one basic thing wrong with this film………..it’s just not funny, not even remotely. If this was a drama, western, horror or thriller then fair enough, but it’s billed as a COMEDY, and comedies are supposed to make you laugh or chuckle or snigger quietly at least, after watching this trailer we did not laugh or chuckle once……not once, and that is coming from somebody who’s a Gervais fan and watched Gervais in many other productions and live and couldn’t stop laughing! A film can be a technical masterpiece, but whats the point, if it fails to achieve its objective, it’s a failure.

We’ve tried to pin point where this film has gone wrong, and we would say its the script. Story, situations, characters, acting and direction are good, the technicals are there, its the words that seem to kill this film…. they are not funny, plain and simple. With Gervais in particular, this film just doesn’t bring out that Gervais factor in him that we are used to seeing, it’s severely lacking and its not his fault. Even with a solid performance from Tea Leoni, this film just doesn’t crack it one iota.

One critic has written that this is a film that will make you “smile” and not laugh out loud. We say this…….. 1000 people in a dark cinema smiling for 2 hours equals silence, and would equate to a thumbs down with regard to a comedy film no matter how sophisticated and what yardstick you use, and is a poor reason to highly rate a film in any shape or form. Box office wise this could surprise particulary in the UK, with the Gervais name pulling in the crowds, but we think this film will prove very disappointing. A technically good but none the less poor film. Thumbs down from us. Rating 2 stars out of 5.

Ghost Town Trailer!

We’ve included a trailer of Ricky Gervais in “The Office” UK Version for comparison purposes. Typical British humour and Gervais is in his usual dry, sarcastic and very irritating form.
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