Ghost Town: The Movie (2008)

Good movie but grossly overrated

Brilliant and touching

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Ghost Town could have been good. You've got some good actors, a pretty good story idea, and an unusual location. Unfortunately it breaks down very quickly. First off the script. There are way too many characters taking up way too much space and time in the movie. Victor Burnett's group of hired bad guys run around the town like they are in a cartoon. When he sends them out on a "search" in the own, they laughably stay together in a tight pack instead of splitting up to cover more of the town. Watching them move through the town in a large group makes them quite feeble. How many does it take to round up one girl? And this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are way too many non-essential talking parts in the whole movie. It seems like we are introduced to as many townsfolk and henchmen as possible just for the sake of adding more speaking roles.If they don't carry the story forward, cut them. Secondly, and more importantly, this movie needs serious editing. The pacing is off, the cuts are poorly chosen, and some scenes are also non-essential if not plain confusing. Many other comments have pointed this out so I won't go into detail. Suffice it to say that this is not a trifling matter concerning a few weak spots. This whole movie needs to be re-edited with the idea of telling a story from start to finish. Cut out some whole scenes. Trim dialog. Get rid of those confusing mystical Native American scenes. You have a good idea here-just poorly put together.

According to IMDb this is Dean Teaster's (West?) directorial debut. Why is it everybody thinks they can direct? Yes, there are two directors listed in the credits, but since it's called Dean Teaster's Ghost Town, I'm assuming the other director (who has a few directing credits to his name) was put there by the producer's to hold Teaster's hand. The problem is he should have held it harder. Some would argue he should have squeezed it. Like so many posts that have come before, it is in the editing where everything breaks down. Yes, you are clearly working on a very small budget. But that has nothing, repeat nothing, to do with telling a good story. I have rarely watched such a poor assemblage of scenes. It is almost as if they don't want you to follow the story. Just when you think you know where it is going, the scene switches and something non essential to the story is thrown in. Teaster makes many rookie mistakes like this. He is so enamored of everything that was shot that he puts it in no matter if it works to advance the story. Plus he lacks the ability to create proper pacing within individual scenes. It is like watching a conductor, who lacks any sense of rhythm, lead an orchestra. Painful. While one can learn to cut out scenes that don't work, lack of rhythm is another matter. A good editor, and a good director, have an innate sense of rhythm. The best are usually musicians, or at least play an instrument, and can transfer that understanding of timing and tempo to the story. I would hazard a guess that Teaster isn't a musician, and probably has two left feet as well.

I loved the movie... The plot was enthralling...D.J. Perry is to be commended on his captivating performance as Will Burnett..Herbert "Cowboy" Coward made you feel like you were actually reliving the past with Harmon Teaster..Robert Bradley has been a favorite of mine since we saw him for the first time, years ago as "The Apache Kid" at Ghost Town in the Sky theme park and this movie just shows another aspect of his talents...Dean Teaster as Digger was very convincing.. the whole cast did a wonderful job.. It was just an exceptional movie and I would highly recommend it to anyone that just wants to watch a good movie and enjoy themselves... I don't buy many movies but this is one that I will be proud to add to my collection...

This feature is about as exciting as a plate of tripe. Overall I'd say even though an edit could possibly fix some of the incredibly draggy and droopy-dog scenes, on other hand if a film drags and drags and droops and drags and droops and droop-drags, then the director either did not direct according to the script, or there was no script, or the script is as bad as the film.Perhaps if this was sliced to tiny bits, if each 20 minute scene is cut down to the actual 2 minutes or less of actual informational footage, then maybe we'll have a story that interests me. Now that I read a few of the oher reviews, I see I am not alone in this, and the long scenes with no cuts just does not work here.Hitchcock tried it in Rope, but Hitchcock is Hitchcock and Rope has some astounding things in it. But as this film stands, I am not interested.The first thing I watch, if a film has extras, are those extras. Well, the extras in this film seem to be a bunch of self absorbed people patting each other on their self-absorbed backs and making jokes which exclusively exclude the viewer.As Viewers, we are alienated, even from the "Making Of" featurettes on the DVD release I found. One featurette was a very long clip of two guys talking to each other and we have no idea what they are discussing except that they use a few cursewords here and there.The inclusion of greats Rance Howard (Ronny Howard's Pop) and Renee O'Conner (Gabriella from Xena Warrior Princess) does not help matters any. We really don't have any idea what is going on at all. I'd say, before editing this, first write a script and then decide on a way of filming it, because this attempt seems to be a struggle and the struggle fails. I got about 15 minutes into the film and was forced to shut it off- To quote Dennis Weaver from the 1958 Orson Welles film "Touch of Evil"It's a Mess! It's a stinkin Mess!"so I must say: "It's a Mess! It's a stinkin Mess!"Independent Film is one of my interests... I would be interested in this, but for the fact that there is practically nothing there that is interesting. Nothing validates the effort I made in obtaining this film.When I obtain a film to view, I expect it to be worth the rental fee at Blockbuster. That said, I did not rent it from there. This film may be found at Amazon.com, and I do not feel that the $18.00 price tag matches the value of the film contained in the DVD.(Edit) Ahhh- I see at least 1 person does not agree with me. Your perogative, but that does not change the fact that this film is wanting in several hundred ways.