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'Ghost Town'

Rating:

BY JOHN ANDERSON | Special to Newsday

September 19, 2008

A delightful antidote to the comedic excesses of the season, "Ghost Town" is smart, sexy fun that should leave no doubt (if there was any) that Ricky Gervais is among the funniest men in film. As anti-

social dentist Bertram Pincus, he sees dead people. Worse, they see him.

Bertram is the least likely man to be given such a gift - the cosmic result of his dying, briefly, during a routine colonoscopy. If you think that's embarrassing, imagine the misanthropic loner becoming the obsession of every deceased soul on the Upper East Side with unfinished business. They include the urbane, once-philandering Frank Herlihy (a great Greg Kinnear), who wants Bertram to take care of his wife, Gwen (Téa Leoni). Maybe he could even scare off Gwen's new fiance? Bertram is such a geek, nothing of the kind seems possible.

But David Koepp, author of the " Spider-Man" and "Jurassic Park" screenplays, directs this updated "Topper" in a beautifully fantasized New York where pathos and laughs cohabit gracefully, where unlikely love can bloom and where Gervais can be understatedly hilarious. Leoni, again, proves what a dryly funny, warmly convincing actress she can be. And the entire tone is refreshingly adult, dotted with intimations of mortality, but so charming it gives new cachet to the afterlife.

'Ghost Town' (PG-13)

PLOT After a near-death experience, a misanthropic dentist acquires the ability to see dead spirits, each of whom has a favor to ask=

CAST Ricky Gervais, Téa Leoni, Greg Kinnear, Dana Ivy.

LENGTH 1:47

PLAYING AT Area theaters

BOTTOM LINE Always amusing, occasionally hilarious comedy proves that Ricky Gervais is to comedy what the dry martini is to alcoholism. And that Téa Leoni is one of our best comediennes.