Ghost Town involves Gervais doing a version of The Office‘s David Brent transplanted to Manhattan. He’s Bertram Pincus, a misanthropic dentist who can suddenly see and hear ghosts. This ability, attained after he “died” for a few minutes during an operation, leads him to be bothered by Manhattan’s ghost population, who all have unresolved issues. Pincus not only sees dead people, he hates hates dead people.
The most persistent ghost is Frank (Greg Kinnear) who wants Pincus to break up his widow Gwen and her new fiancé. Instead, since this is a formulaic rom-com, Pincus falls for Gwen (Tea Leoni) and tries desperately, in his inept, off-putting, creepy way, to romance her.
Despite valiant attempts to make the awful Pincus likable, there is no real reason why someone like Gwen would possibly fall for a short, mean, potato-faced guy like him.
There are some amusing moments and it’s not as crude, rude or nude as recent raunchy rom-coms such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but this one’s really most appealing for die-hard Gervais fans.
