Ghost (Film Review)

1990 Paramount Pictures
Directed by: Jerry Zucker; Written by: Bruce Joel Rubin
Starring: Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Goldwyn, and Rick Aviles
MPAA Rating: PG-13; Running Time: 127 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 8/10

Sam Wheat is ready for the 1990s. He's just moved to an incredibly cool loft in Manhattan with his incredibly beautiful girlfriend, Molly, supported by his banking job with his incredibly sketchy best friend, Carl. Unfortunately, 1990 is the only year of the 90s Sam will see, as he is murdered in the street after a night out with Molly. However, Sam finds himself still very much Earthbound, except now no one can see him or hear him and he can't seem to touch anything. Sam quickly finds his killers, but is terrified to discover that now the murderers are after Molly. Can Sam bring his killers to justice, while protecting Molly? Can he ever find the peace to move on?
Ghost is not a complicated film. Within minutes of Sam Wheat's death, the mastermind behind his murder is revealed. There are only a few characters and there is only one of those it can really be, anyway. There aren't any twists or turns in its plot. Sam learns to control and manipulate his environment more as a ghost, then finds a psychic ally who can speak for him in Whoopi Goldberg's Oda Mae. Sam uses Oda Mae and his advanced abilities to communicate with Molly and his killers, brings his killers to justice, and brings Molly (and to a degree, Oda Mae) peace, and moves on. Nothing really unsurprising happens. Ghost just does all of those things so well.
As Sam, Patrick Swayze brings the expected purity and vulnerability he gives in all his best performances. As Molly, Demi Moore lends a sad, strong beauty, resistant at first to Swayze's ghostly communications, then fully and warmly embracing them. Holy cow, can Demi Moore cry. As Oda Mae, Whoopi Goldberg won an Oscar. She's hilarious, but there's a strange pathos in her performance, a bonafide glue that holds the film firmly together. As the best friend-turned villain, Tony Goldwyn exudes just the right energy, as Carl is out of his element, slimy, yet still somehow both charming and menacing. Rick Aviles, a standup comedian, is quite scary as Carl's gunman. In what would be a bit role in the hands of any other actor, Vincent Schiavelli is larger than life, hugely memorable as an angry, troubled ghost who helps Sam interact with the real world. Meanwhile, Jerry Zucker, who usually directs parodies, and Bruce Joel Rubin, who approached writing this film as if it was Macbeth, cancel out what would be each other's negative tendencies in making what is essentially a serious, yet populist supernatural romance thriller . Along with all of the other craftsmen who worked on the film, including composer, Maurice Jarre, these actors, this director, and this writer come together in a zeitgeist-bursting peak that made Ghost the third-highest-grossing film of all time shortly after its release in 1990. While the film has long lost that title, it's lost none of its charm or its power. Ghost might not be complicated. It might not try to break any mold or do anything new. But when it comes to romantic supernatural thrillers, it doesn't get much better than Ghost.