GHOST TOWN

New York. It's a place to be seen. It's a place to be found.

Yeah, I just watched the latest COVERGIRL ad with the fat Top Model (hater!), and that's what she said. I figure she probably didn't write the lines herself, but they do ring true for New York, as they would for any big city...or any location (A shopping cart...it's a place to be seen; it's a place to be found!). But the point is that pop culture and Hollywood are hooked on the City of Apples like a chubby pre-teen on Twinkies. Maybe it's the glamour created by Sex and the City. Maybe it's the tax cuts.

GHOST TOWN is the latest flicka using this particular place to be seen and found as its backdrop, and though it doesn't focus on the fashion fiesta that is Fifth Avenue, it does give ample credence to the lovely places and colorful individuals that make New York unique. Unique New York. Unique New York. Say that five times fast.

GHOST TOWN stars Ricky Gervais, the boss in the original British version of "The Office." I regret to admit that I've never seen the original "Office," but as far as I can tell from its American spin-off, Ricky Gervais (Steve Carrell's muse) plays a nerdy, nebbish, awkward guy. I guess it's his specialty, because that is also his character in GHOST TOWN--albeit here, he's probably more awkward than his TV self, and his character also bears the weight of a palpable sadness that begins to push this goofy comedy towards sentimental...dramedy.

The film has a silly premise: a dentist (Gervais) dies for a few instants during surgery, awakens and can see and speak to the dead of NYC who harbor unfinished business with the living. That actually sounds like the start of a horror film (I see dead people!). But frightening, GHOST TOWN is not. Its superficial delivery actually masks the meat of the film's message, i.e., the same meat our Covergirl was chewing on while applying her mascara: life--and the after-life--is about being seen and being found...and ultimately about finding yourself (awww). In his quest to handle the undead, our anti-social DDS starts to do just that.

My greatest qualm, as I intimated, is all in the delivery. At times GHOST TOWN feels British, with its...British lead, and its racial humor and its pessimism and bad weather (I love London, I do). But other times, the humor is decidedly American. I can't really explain it...but it's kind of the difference between making fun of fat people (American) and making fun of fat foreigners (British). This movie made fun of fat foreigners and then didn't...and then did and then didn't. Plus, there was a lot of stuttering; sometimes funny, sometimes annoying. Watch RUN FATBOY RUN, written half by a Brit (Simon Pegg) and half by an American (Michael Ian Black), and you might begin to understand. Unfortunately, an American delivering British humor, or vice versa, can sometimes be hard to swallow.

THE PLOT: I see and hate people.
THE THOUGHT: Cheer up, everybody dies eventually.
IN FIVE: 2.5/5 (I think it half works)

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