(What? No long-haired ghost chick hell-bent on revenge? Just Patrick Swayze in a burgundy shirt? I can live with that…)
CAST: Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Goldwyn, Rick Aviles.
DIRECTOR: Jerry Zucker
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and some rather handsome ghosts straight ahead….
In our last review for CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON (review # 302), we talked about how all that high-wire jumping, soaring, leaping, gliding, and bounding challenged some viewers’ ability to suspend their disbelief. Well, something tells me those very same viewers had absolutely no trouble buying Patrick Swayze as a ghost who comes back from the beyond to protect his lover played by Demi Moore in our latest review, GHOST. But, essentially, what we have here is exactly the same leaps in logic that many hurl against CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON.
For starters, if Sam Wheat (Swayze) is a ghost who can move through doors, then how come he doesn’t slide through the floor? If he has to concentrate all of his energies and emotions to be able to move something, shouldn’t he do the same to be able to stand on a solid surface? And what about Whoopi Goldberg’s medium character Oda Mae? If she can’t see Sam but only hear him, then how come we, the audience, see him? Are we psychic? And if ghosts can possess humans, then why doesn’t Sam possess someone and do the detective work himself instead of acting as The World’s Freakiest Sidekick?
I could go on and on… but whatever. All you need to know is that Sam is a NYC financial whiz with commitment issues (wow, novel concept) who is shot in a botched mugging one night after leaving an off-Broadway (way off-Broadway) show with his loving girlfriend Molly (Demi Moore). The mugger (Rick Aviles) asks for Sam’s wallet, and Sam, being an idiot, decides to roshambo him for it. You can guess where all this ends up: in the morgue - with Sam wearing a toe tag. At least his body, anyway.
His spirit is another matter. Wandering around downtown NYC like a tourist from Oklahoma, Sam is essentially caught between this world and the next. He finds out first-hand that it sucks to be a ghost because you can’t do the following anymore: (1) drink alcohol; (2) eat cheeseburgers; or (3) have sweaty sex with random acquaintances. There’s a reason why people fear death, folks, and it’s mainly because of the three preceding reasons. Trust me on that.
Anyhow, through a series of events that I’m not going to bother delineating, Sam begins to suspect that his murder was not a mugging-gone-bad, but rather an act of cold-blooded premeditation. It helps his cause immensely when he finds himself an ally in wacky faux medium Oda Mae Brown (Goldberg), who is more shocked than anyone else in the room that she can actually hear spirits when Sam starts yelling at her like they’ve been married for twenty years.
Before you know it, Sam and Oda Mae are playing Cagney and Lacey, except one of them has a penis. Well, not really, when you consider that Sam is now a ghost and can’t use it for anything worthwhile. Or even un-worthwhile, for that matter. Soon, they’re paying a visit to Molly, who is understandably perturbed that a chick who claims to be psychic has been having running dialogues (okay, more like running arguments) with her dead lover. What would you do? I sure as fuck wouldn’t have coffee with her. But I’m not Molly, who basically is told by Oda Mae that whoever killed Sam is now after her. And how was your week?
Will Molly believe Oda Mae? Will Sam be able to protect the love of his life? Or is she pretty much toast, too? What role does Sam’s best friend Carl (Tony Goldwyn) have in the whole mess? Is he friend? Or foe? And by the time Molly finds out which, will it be too late? Or will the 1,247th playing of “Unchained Melody” kill her first?
I’m betting on the latter. If I hear “Oh, my love, my darling, I’ve hungered for your touch” one more fucking time, I’m going to walk up to the nearest person and punch them in the stomach.
BUT, SERIOUSLY: In our recent review for LEGALLY BLONDE (review # 298), we talked about how a film can sometimes have a potentially silly premise, but be redeemed and saved by a capable cast, director, and script. Once again, we run into that very same situation with GHOST. This movie could’ve easily been a ludicrous mess. Somehow, though, it manages to not only work, but also engage us emotionally. Indeed, this film grossed over $200 million in North America alone, and over $500 million worldwide by the end of 1990. Not bad for a film that everyone was sure would do so-so, at the very best.
Much of GHOST’s power lies with the performances of its leads Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, and Whoopi Goldberg. Since we see nearly all of the story through Sam’s eyes, we need an actor playing him that we can feel a kinship to and be one with. Swayze’s empathetic performance allows this. He’s matched by Demi Moore, who’s probably one of the most beautiful “criers” in cinema history. The shot of her at the end, with tears pouring out of her eyes, as she says farewell to Sam for one last time is practically an iconic image. But Moore also refuses to make Molly just about vulnerability, and infuses the character with a spunkiness and fire that makes it clear she can take care of herself despite everything that has happened to her.
As good as Swayze and Moore are, though, the movie is nearly stolen from them by Whoopi Goldberg as the sketchy medium who discovers, quite by chance, just how gifted she really is. Goldberg delivers a comic turn that is both broad and specific at the same time, and gives the film a much-needed shot of humor to make up for some of its more somber tones. Say what you want, but Goldberg deserved the Oscar she won for the role that year.
In the end, you can do worse than GHOST for solid entertainment. As the tagline of the poster says, “believe.”
