Ghost of New Orleans

Since when are there basements in New Orleans? I found this very distracting that the name of the movie contains "New Orleans" and it was not fully recorded in that city...sigh

Set in New Orleans, this film is a strange mixture of genres -- part film noir and part ghost story. Josh Lucas plays a detective, guilt-ridden over the shooting of an innocent boy by mistake. He is assigned to a stakeout in an empty house across the street from a suspect, Terrence Howard, who is possibly implicated in a number of bizarre serial killings. The detective soon discovers that the stakeout house has a reputation in the neighborhood of being haunted. A young female musician was murdered there several years earlier, allegedly by her own brother, who has been placed in an asylum for the criminally insane. When the detective discovers he is able to see, hear, and even touch the ghost of this murdered woman, played by Lake Bell, he realizes that she can only find rest if he can find her real killer and thus set the brother (Nick Lashaway) free. Deborah Ann Woll (of "True Blood") and Sharon Leal play friends of the murdered woman, and as such, their own lives may be in jeopardy. Cary Elwes stands out as the villainous owner of a country club that may be a front for drug trading. The movie is an atmospheric indie thriller that manages to be both suspenseful and moderately entertaining, thanks to sterling performances from Josh Lucas and Terrence Howard. Thus far, its only DVD releases that I'm aware of have been in Germany and Australia. Hopefully, it will be available in the U.S. before long.

Let's make something clear, this is not a thriller movie. It's a decent crime drama but there is nothing about this movie that I would consider it a thriller. I'll be honest it's not a bad watch but be forewarned it is slow and not in one of those building up slow then smack you down crazy make it all worth it kind of slow. The one thing it does have going for it it leads you in a couple directions. You really don't know who the final suspect is until the very end. The acting was decent, the cinematography was underwhelming, especially since they were supposed to be in New Orleans. I feel like they could've done so much more with the story but it was like the writer just couldn't pull all the threads together to create something exciting. I'm not going to say it was a total waste of time but I will say I do not have a desire to watch it again. On to the next.

The Ghost of New Orleans is a ghost detective procedural. I do not know why I didn't see it at the theaters, but I wish I had. I really wanted to give this an eight or nine, but I can't. The last twenty minutes it comes into its own. I'm not as put off by the one bad accent, if you been too Southern Louisianna then you've heard it from Louisianans, there's only one place where it really doesn't work. There are three Louisianan accents, and he (Barry) does pull off one except once. Regarding basements in New Orleans, it's a common mistake and the term may be used in reference to a first floor that floods easily that is normally behind a retaining wall to keep the floods out. They feel like basements but are not basements so when you see a basement in a movie about Louisianna, it wasn't filmed in Louisianna. If you like detective or Ghost Stories then you'll like this.

Lucas convincingly pulled off this eerie tale of a police detective who not only was haunted by his past mistakes but haunted by the murder of beautiful young woman in the present. The storyline kept me interested and somewhat surprised to the end.