Film

Here comes Mr. Jordan, always. Gervais does what he can to make a shopworn premise likeable, but blockbuster screenwriter Koepp—who demonstrated a deft genre hand as the director of Stir of Echoes—can’t do much to enliven this romantic comedy–as–self-help guide. Gervais plays Bertram Pincus, a cartoonishly misanthropic dentist who, after dying for a few minutes under anesthesia, gains the ability to see ghosts. All of them want Bertram to do them favors—none more so than Frank (Kinnear), a former high-rolling, adulterous asshole who, in the opening scene, narrowly avoids being squashed by a falling air conditioner only to get hit by a bus a second later. Frank promises to hold New York’s ghosts at bay—do you know anyone persuasive enough to do that?—if Pincus can prevent his widow (Leoni) from remarrying.

That Gervais and Leoni’s characters should fall for each other is both unlikely and unimaginative, and a novel choice of professions notwithstanding—she’s an archeologist at the Met—what we have here is a movie that allows its star to do all the heavy lifting. (The film’s idea of humor is to have Gervais wear his dentist’s uniform outside the office.) Apart from amusing supporting turns by Kristen Wiig and Aasif Mandvi, “ghost town” might well refer to the movie’s ideas.