GHOST
With Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, and Tony Goldwyn.
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However, the ambitions of director Jerry Zucker soar considerably above the genre parodies he executed in partnership with his brother David Zucker and Jim Abrahams in Airplane!, Top Secret!, and The Naked Gun. Conceived as a three-toned pastiche, Ghost is entirely satisfactory both as a gothic thriller and as a comedy, but it pales when it comes to the romantic hues. When the film takes a chance, it almost always succeeds–its faults stem from a blanching of its ambition, not artistic hubris–and with Whoopi Goldberg’s finest screen comedy work thrown in for good measure, the overall effect is one of giddy suspense.
However, Sam’s struggles to find an agent to help him solve his own murder are unpredictably hilarious while still thrilling, thanks in no small part to Whoopi Goldberg. Goldberg plays crooked Brooklyn psychic Oda Mae Brown, lassoed into Sam’s project when he accidentally stumbles into her storefront parlor. Muttering imprecations at her cheap but effective psychic scam, Sam is nearly as surprised as the shocked and shook Oda Mae that she–and only she–can hear him.
Zucker seems dimly aware of this failing, and has hyped up Sam and Molly’s “romantic” moments, both with overdrive camera movements (overhead shots, caressing close-ups) and with the intrusion of the old Righteous Brothers song “Unchained Melody” on the sound track. Aside from following a general trend that equates great old songs of the past (anything by Sam Cooke, say) with bad old songs from the past (this one), the song’s presence is a bald attempt to exploit the audience’s nostalgia to provoke feelings that are otherwise beyond the filmmaker’s grasp. Add Maurice Jarre’s syrupy, overorchestrated reprise of the thin melody and you have just the kind of manipulation this movie so competently avoids when it comes to the more emotionally fresh suspense and comedy elements.
