DVD Corner - GHOST TOWN

And because I don't just watch movies when they come out (although I do see a lot of them then), today we've got a film I watched at home.

HAUNTED BY SPOILERS BELOW


















GHOST TOWN was a big studio feature, written by David Koepp and John Kamps, directed by Koepp, and starring Ricky Gervais. It tells the story of a jerky dentist who values his privacy and, after a near-death experience, sees ghosts who want his help in order to resolve their unfinished business. This bristles against his desire to protect his alone time, particularly because pushy ghost Greg Kinnear won't leave him alone until he helps break up the marriage of his widow to a human rights lawyer.

Koepp has written some truly amazing scripts, including the first Spider-Man movie. And he and Kamps have done good work together as well. At the end of the day, though, this feels oddly more like an indie film than a major studio release. There's some great character work, and the plot of the story flows naturally out of Gervais' intense desire from privacy and how that conflicts with Kinnear's plan to screw up his wife's impending marriage. And also how Gervais has to deal with the widow (Tea Leoni), particularly after being rude to her in the past. However, the very execution of the script in a way feels like the smallest possible version of the story and slightly a failure of imagination. It reminded me in many ways about BRUCE ALMIGHTY, and how the writers hit on a brilliant premise (regular guy gets to be God for a while), but instead of doing something big with it, they limited to having a newscaster try to win his job and girl back. There was a much better, bigger version of that idea instead of the one they made.

Now this is a much better written, acted, and directed film than that. It just feels...small, I guess is the right way to describe it. A guy finds out he can talk to ghosts and instead of going down several wrong paths with it (using their knowledge for some sort of personal gain, like investing in the stock market, stealing stuff by supernaturally knowing the combination to a safe or an alarm code or where the keys are kept, or wooing a woman using inside info a la GROUNDHOG DAY) and then finally using it for right, our hero just avoids dealing with it altogether. And while that's a choice and an action on his part, it's kind of a boring one. Even when he finally decides to help the ghosts, almost all of their problems are small too and easily solvable -- showing a woman where a formerly hidden letter from her dead mother was; showing a truck driver an accident wasn't his fault by pointing out some damage on his truck; finding a child's doll under a car seat; even wrapping up Tea Leoni and Greg Kinnear's problem is solvable in about three minutes of screentime.

To Koeep and Kamps' credit, I liked Gervais despite his jerkiness, a credit to the writing (and Gervais' acting). And I got emotionally involved in his journey from jerk to nice guy. I just can't help feeling like the film would've worked better if the main character was more active, more involved, and the overall story was bigger. That's part of the reason GROUNDHOG DAY works so brilliantly; even though it's a contained story in a small town, it feels like the movie fully explores what someone would do if he found himself death-proof and waking up in the same day over and over again.

INDIANA JONES - 18 Years for This?

I'm a huge Indiana Jones fan.  The first movie is one of the great action films of all time, and the rest, for all their flaws, are eminently enjoyable.  Which is why the last movie was so disappointing.  It was a popcorn movie, but I expected better from everyone involved, especially since it was so long between movies.  If we're going to wait 18 years and go out with one more movie, this was it?

I'm not even going to nitpick some of the goofy stuff, like the gophers.  I'll let them go.   The script had several major problems.

SPOILERS HO!!!!

One, the setup is clunky.  Indy's in trouble.  There are Russians after alien corpses.  Indy escapes the Russkies.  The government fires him from his university job.  He goes looking for the skull with his son.  He's not sure if he should return it where he found it or bring it to the lost city.  Blah blah blah.  Jeez.  That's confusing.  How about this instead?

You open with the current setpieces (Area 51 and the atomic bomb test) as Indy evades the Russians.  But the baddies grab the crystal skull from Area 51.  The FBI comes to Indy -- there are 13 crystal skulls.  The Russians have 12 -- if they get the last one, they get the power of the skulls; it's like the Ark on crack.  They'd take over the world.  Indy says -- so you need my help?  They say yeah, point us where the last one is, we're gonna go get it.  Without you.  You're too old.  And then Indy hooks up with Indy, Jr. and goes looking for the final skull to save Professor So-and-So and the world.  And has difficulty pulling off the tasks by himself because he is too old.  He has to rely on Mutt (really, that's what you named him?) to help him out.  It's a much cleaner setup, and it establishes a problem for Indy -- how can he save the world when he's getting on in years?  It also intertwines a minor arc for Mutt -- how he goes from being a rebellious punk to a hero taking direction from Indiana Jones.  You have some conflict built in -- Indy and Mutt butting heads over giving/taking orders, Mutt and Indy's whole relationship changing when they realize they're father and son, etc.  All of which is better than what played out onscreen.

Other major flaws include the double-agenting of Ray Winstone, which matters not at all in the film except for which Jeep he happens to be riding in; the fact that Karen Allen has nothing to do other than to get all misty-eyed when Indy pays attention to her; and that nobody even bothered to give an arc to Indy, Jr.   So there's no emotional journey for anyone in the film, just chasing around and some action setpieces leading up to a murkily defined climax.

Throw in the most thoroughly unimpressive bad guy in the series and the fact that the ending manages to rip off both RAIDERS (in that Indy does nothing and the bad guy's head catches on fire; although in RAIDERS, it was at least novel and Indy proved he knew what he was doing by averting his eyes) and LAST CRUSADE (in that Ray Winstone greedily grabs for gold while a pyramid falls on his head) and you've got a movie that's instantly forgettable.

Obviously Steven Spielberg can direct, and David Koepp has writtten some of the best genre films out there, including SPIDER-MAN.  So it's hard to understand why we got the movie we did.

Here's hoping Indy 5 is better.