Unfinished Business
Patrick Swayze is Sam Wheaton, a big city banker who is successful and has a great life. His girlfriend, Molley Jensen, is played by Demi Moore. One night, the two are walking in a dark alley when they are approached abruptly by a stranger. Not surprisingly it’s a mugging, at gunpoint. There is a struggle, and Sam gets shot and dies on site.
That wouldn’t be much of a film of course; as soon as Sam dies, his spirit separates from his body. He can see Molly and the rest of the world, including his own body, but he cannot speak to them. Frustrated, he decides to visit Whoopi Goldberg’s character, Oda Mae. Oda Mae is a con artist who runs a psychic store with her two sisters. During one of her routine séance scams, Sam talks to her, and she hears him, although she cannot see him, an event that surprises both of them.
Sam convinces Oda Mae to help him protect Molly from Willie Lopez, the man that shot and killed Sam. Willie was able to get Sam’s wallet and key to Molly’s apartment, and it’s obvious he is going to visit her apartment soon. After some convincing, Oda Mae decides to help Sam. She tells Molly all kinds of things that she could not know unless she heard them from Sam, but understandably Molly is still reluctant to believe. Meanwhile, Sam’s good friend and co-worker, Carl, meets up with Molly later that day; he’s suspicious, but we soon find out much more about Carl’s darker side and this random mugging may not have been so random after all. As the film progresses, Carl becomes a very real threat to Molly and even Oda Mae.
I thought the story unfolded rather nicely and I’d hate to drop too many spoilers for those of you who haven’t seen it before. Suffice it to say that Ghost is a well written film; there are strong elements of drama, romance, and even some comedy, too. The actors turn in fine performances and while the overall premise may be kind of goofy, it’s entertaining.
Appearing On Blu-ray
I thought Ghost looked great for a nearly twenty year old film. The contrast was nice and the colors are pretty vibrant for the most part. There are minor grain issues and I thought some colors during scenes looked a little washed out, but ultimately the video quality isn’t bad at all. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround Sound does a nice job of bringing you the dialogue, which is primarily what you’ll be listening to throughout Ghost.
This Ghost Blu-ray release includes several extra features, but unfortunately nothing is new nor in HD. Here’s the breakdown:
-Audio commentary with director Jerry Zucker and screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin.
-The Making of A Classic – This is a basic thirteen minute feature including old interviews with cast and crew members talking about the film and its success, etc.
-Alchemy of A Love Scene – This is a six minute feature dedicated to a love scene in the film.
-Inside the Paranormal – This feature runs about ten minutes and is really quite useless. It’s not so much about the film; so called psychics voice their opinions about the supernatural in ways that attempt to relate to the movie.
-100 Years…100 Passions – This twenty minute extra is actually part of a series of TV shows that were produced for the AFI. I thought this was one of those extra features that is just barely applicable and could have been left out just the same.
-Still Gallery – A collection of over forty promotional and production pictures.
I thought the extras could have used more attention. The ‘Paranormal’ and ‘100 Years’ features are really useless and unnecessary, too. Let’s get to the summary…
