‘Walk like a man, Talk like a man!’ When this is sung, it makes me remember this beautiful film about four ghosts who got stuck to a kid for about 2 decades after they all got into a vehicular accident. This movie stars Robert Downey, Jr. as Thomas Reilly.
The story began with a public bus picking up four individuals of different walks of life. One is a frustrated singer name Harrison, the other is a mother named Penny, then a lady whom was afraid to express her love named Julia, and Milo who stole stamps from a kid.
On that fateful night the bus met an accident where it fell from a bridge. It almost hit a car to which Thomas’ parents are on and his mom is on labor. Thomas is born that day and the ghosts of the four individual got connected to him.
The four stayed with him, played with him during his childhood years. Thomas alone can see them. The mom, Penny, sang a song to him so he can sleep. People around Thomas got worried about him having four invisible friends. This made the four ghosts decided to disappear from Thomas’ sight but they stayed with him until he grew as a man who had trouble finding his heart.
One day, as the four of them are following Thomas, their bus and bus driver appeared and told them that it’s their time to go up. But all four bargained to finish their unfinished business before moving on. The bus driver agreed but he’ll take one of them everyday.
This prompted the troupe to force themselves to reappear to the older Thomas. This was not accepted well by Thomas after all the trouble he went through as a kid with them in his sight. And after troubling Thomas he is forced to help them.
First he helped Milo get back the stamps he stole and returned them to the kid he stole it from who is now older. After that success, the four souls and Thomas sang on the streets of San Francisco, ‘walk like a man, talk like a man’. I think it was such a classic scene. Then the bus came to take Milo.
Next they tried to look for Penny’s kids but being caught in traffic in front of a BB King concert. They had Harrison sing the American anthem in front of an audience. Harrison had to be forced in Thomas’ body to perform. This surprised the lady ghosts as well as Thomas’ girlfriend who happened to be in the same show with her parents. And at the end of the anthem, the bus came in to take Harrison.
Thomas is later taken by the police because of his stint. And upon leaving the police station, they hit a policeman’s car which happened to be Penny’s son. This made Penny ready for the bus.
And lastly, it was Julia’s turn who tracked for his old love but sadly he was already dead. But she was able to finish her task which is to help Thomas in his love life.
This is definitely among my favorites as it had a heart and emotion.
