The first in what is doubtless to be a large number of nearly-hollow films parading about as something greater during this awards season, the Ricky Gervais starrer “Ghost Town” is overly generous on the ghost and a little stingy with the town. Ostensibly a plebian rom com with a script-by-numbers storyline, the only redeeming quality here is the unflinching, perfect-pitched delivery of Gervais and the acerbic sardonicism he is working with. Fans of the Brit thesp will be amused, but most auds will find this ectoplasmic entertainment one step past redeeming.
I’ll admit that I really wanted to like “Town.” The crix were surprisingly positive, although they warned that it was all very commercial. I was able to rub this off, because Gervais is plainly brilliant, and I assumed that I would love any film in which he opened his mouth. That assumption turned out to be true, for the most part. The problem with “Town,” then, is that his mouth was not open constantly. The remaining screentime, particularly that which was permitted for characters played by Greg Kinnear and Aasif Mandvi, felt like a catastrophic waste of my time. An overwhelming majority of the supporting material is just patently unfunny, mostly because it is completely calculated and devoid of any actual personhood. I’ve never heard profanity used to such ineffectual ends, especially considering the rarity with which it is deployed. “Les Grossman” was funnier, and that is like saying, well, practically nothing.
There is a scene in “Town” where the Gervais character is seated beneath an inspirational poster, and told that he needs to stop being such a selfish jerk. I could swallow this pill, if the character delivering it seemed human. But he doesn’t. In fact, the only human in this movie is the big jerk character, and all of the “humans” seem like big jerks. Somehow, that leaves “Ghost Town” feeling just purely commercial – which it is.