RICKY Gervais graduates to Hollywood leading man in Ghost Town, David Koepp's supernatural comedy about a curmudgeon who discovers that he can see dead people on the streets of Manhattan.

Unfortunately, the award-winning star of The Office and Extras simply doesn't have the charisma to carry an entire film, falling back on his usual repertoire of comic tics and mumbled asides.

Screenwriters Koepp and John Kamps rely on Gervais's unsympathetic misanthrope for the majority of the laughs, a risk that doesn't pay off, resulting in uncomfortable longueurs when every punchline falls flat.

Saturday Night Live regular Kristen Wiig is a blessed relief as a litigation-shy surgeon who tries to cover up an unfortunate turn of events on the operating table.

“You died... a little bit,” she eventually confesses to Gervais's dumbfounded patient. “Everybody dies," she adds soothingly. “Yeah, usually at the end of their life,” he replies, "and only the once.”

There's every chance that audiences could die of boredom well before the end of Koepp's film.