“Ghost Town”

The reason to rent this DVD, in a word (two, actually): Ricky Gervais, who does another spin on the socially-awkward character he perfected on “The Office.” In “Ghost Town” he plays Bertram Pincus, a dentist who dies on the table during a colonoscopy and is revived, only to discover that he now can see and communicate with dead people. One particular member of his new group of friends is Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), a recently-deceased cad who “convinces” Bertram to break up his widowed wife’s (Tea Leoni) pending marriage. And as is the law in the world of romantic comedies, Bertram must eventually fall in love with the widow and she with him. But that’s a little difficult when Bertram is an “anti-people” person who has a gift for saying and doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. Gervais himself has a gift for making these cringe-inducing characters watchable. Just as in “The Office,” you’ll watch a scene unfold and think to yourself, “he’s not going to do that… oh please don’t do that” and when does, you think to yourself, “I can believe he just did that.” And that’s the fun part in an otherwise pretty tame romantic comedy. My favorite scene: The dog with bad breath. My tweet, inspired by Bertram’s ability to see dead people: Ghost Town-Ricky Gervais, Tea Leoni & Greg Kinnear star in this romantic comedy loosely based on M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense.” 7 (out of 10)

“Ghost Town”

Released: 2008

Rating: PG-13

Length: 102 minutes

Cast: Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear, Tea Leoni

Director: David Koepp

Genre(s): Comedy, Romantic Comedy