Just saw this on DVD and really enjoyed it. It’s kind of like a Ghost and Sixth Sense mashup, but is a romantic comedy. Ricky Gervais plays a misanthropic, smartass dentist
who, after briefly dying during an operation, finds that he can now speak to the ghosts who prowl the streets of New York. He soon realizes that he really, really wishes he couldn’t, as the ghosts can be pretty annoying in asking him to pass messages along to their loved ones. Greg Kinnear plays a just-died ghost who wants Gervais’s help in keeping his widow, a winsome Tea Leoni, from remarrying.
The cast is excellent, the dialogue very funny, and NYC has never looked better. Two thumbs up.
Wow I loved that movie. My mom got it a couple months ago and I just kinda rolled my eyes. She and I don’t have the same taste in movies. But I watched it anyway and was very pleasantly surprised. I really thought he was a great comedian and was surprised I’d never heard of him before.
That’s terrific, because that means you have the entire British *Office *and *Extras *series to look forward to.
I only recall bits and pieces from this movie. But you’re right, New York really looks good in it. And Gervais is funny per usual.
I enjoyed it. Saw it in the theater last fall. I am a sucker for romantic comedies and happy endings. And I want to live in a world where Téa would fall for Ricky.
The film is cute but nowhere in the league of the best of Gervais. One problem is that the plot (guy sees dead people and becomes responsible for helping them) has been so overplayed by now, even if taken from a comedic angle.
The other is that Tea Leoni is (and generally always is) quite horrible, and their burgeoning relationship is wholly unbelievable; it feels like a conceit of the story and not something that would naturally develop between these two very different types. Given that the emotional payoff to the story centers around them ending up together, the film is a bit of a bust, IMHO.
I saw it in the theater on a whim and ended up loving it. I thought all aspects of the movie were really well-done. It was hilarious, but it was also quite touching and real (excepting the obvious).
One of the few movies I saw last year that I’d consider buying, actually.
I saw it in the theater and enjoyed it quite a bit. I was curious about the backstories of a few of the ghosts, particularly the nurse and would like to have seen more about them. Yes, that’s right, I want an extended cut of a romantic comedy.
No one’s mentioned my favorite bit: Aasif Mandvi as the other dentist in the practice
Bertram Pincus: Yeah. So, um, how would you extract information from a hostile?
Dr. Prashar: Well… as a… Hindu person… I would just… ask him… politely…
I think the funniest part is the beginning when he’s finding out he died during the procedure.
Bertram Pincus: Did anything usual happen during my operation?
Surgeon: You… uh… died for seven minutes.
Bertram Pincus: I died! For seven minutes!
Surgeon: We brought you right back. People die all the time.
Bertram Pincus: Yeah, but it’s usually just once… at the end.