(2008) The dead leave us with unfinished business. Transplanted from London to Manhattan, Bertram Pincus, DDS (Ricky Gervais), a cold, selfish, self-centered, anti-social (It's not crowds he loathes but the individual people of which a crowd's composed), "smock-wearing tooth faerie," discovers to his annoyance after a colonoscopy that he can see ghosts. "He can see us?" Worse, they can see him and desperately desire favors from him.

Taking us on a cinematic journey from pearly whites to the pearly gates, director David Koepp co-wrote this romantic comedy's screenplay, which though invisible to many in the mass audience found a way to leave a strong impression on those who took the time to look for it.

Returning to St Victor Hospital and complaining to the surgeon about experiencing hallucinations, demanding to know - "Did anything unusual happen during my procedure?" - while he was under general anesthesia, he finally elicits that he died for about seven minutes. He's assured that under the hospital's three-strikes policy, the anesthesiologist is no longer a member of the medical team.

Back out on the street Pincus again encounters Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), who died about a year earlier (at the outset of the movie) when struck by an MTA bus just after narrowly escaping being conked by a falling air conditioner as he was arguing on his cellphone with a real-estate agent for showing his wife the love-nest intended for his girlfriend.

Frank and the other poltergeists can pass through objects and living people but also use physical objects as they did when alive; postmortem they are attired as they were when they died, including one man who goes about naked. Their presence often causes the living to sneeze.

Along with the other wandering spirits, Frank needs the dentist's assistance, promising if Pincus does this one thing for him he'll make sure the ghosts (including himself) disappear. His widow Gwen (Téa Leoni), an Egyptologist working on mummies for the MET's Saqqara Exhibit, is about to wed "a scumbag" (Frank suspects of wanting to fleece her) - Richard, a human-rights lawyer, who spends most of his time working for the disadvantaged in the world's poorest countries.

Gwen resides in the same housing complex on the floor below Pincus, "a sad little man" preferring quiet, who has repeatedly behaved rudely toward her, such as denying her the elevator and taking her cab. As Pincus (whom Frank takes to calling "Pink Ass") listens to Gwen's lecture, simultaneously taking in Frank's plot to foil his former wife's matrimonial intention, he imagines himself as the ideal substitute for Richard; uncertain about Pincus's prospects, Frank nevertheless proposes to coach the romance.

Awkwardly at first, having to overcome Gwen's bad impressions of him, Pincus manages to make himself useful to her research, pointing out that the mummy Pepi's decayed jawbone may have been the cause of death. But having shared an evening with Gwen and Richard, Pincus sees nothing untoward in the relationship nor in Richard's character; the couple appear to be genuinely in love.

In a restaurant with Gwen, Pincus asks her to list Frank's faults (as he's lurking nearby): narcissistic, obnoxious, perverted, rude to waiters, and (surprise) disloyal, for which she regrets not having had the opportunity to express her anger at him. Nevertheless, Richard drops in unexpectedly at Pincus's clinic with a painful cracked filling, giving the dentist an opportunity, with the assistance of nitrous oxide, to extract information.

With Pincus's having met his side of their bargain ("Leave me alone"), Frank remains confounded ("But why am I still here?") and haunted: "Why wasn't I enough?"

Suspicious and curious as to how Pincus seems to know "stuff from my life about Frank," Gwen nonetheless takes a more sympathetic view toward the strange, practical man until he once again disappoints her. A woman who makes a man desperately desire to go back in time before he met her because he can't have her now makes a man philosophical: "We live alone and we die alone."

Well, that wouldn't be a comic ending, would it? Bertram Pincus eventually sees the light, which allows Frank to find his way home, while Gwen needs to have that bothersome molar checked.

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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