Director Roman Polanski has been in the news a lot recently, but not for his filmmaking.  Still wanted in the United States for a 1977 sexual assault case, Polanski was recently arrested in Europe and will likely have to travel back to the U.S. for sentencing.  Sounds like the guy could use a distraction, and a hit movie may be just what he needs.  Despite his legal troubles, production on his new film The Ghost Writer was never delayed and is now being released in the States.

The Ghost Writer is a political conspiracy thriller that focuses on an unnamed writer who is hired to ghostwrite the memoirs of Adam Lang, a former British Prime Minister.  The job is available because the previous ghostwriter fell off of a ferry and drowned… a death that is being considered either an accident or suicide.

Shortly after the new writer arrives at the island compound where Lang is currently residing in the United States, it is announced that Lang is being suspected of war crimes and will be investigated by the International Court.  The writer then finds evidence of a conspiracy hidden away by his predecessor and begins to pick up the trail.  Before long, he begins to suspect that his predecessor may have in fact been murdered, and that he might be next.

In many ways, The Ghost Writer feels like a poor man’s version of Polanski’s own 1974 classic Chinatown.  All that is missing is Polanski holding a knife to Ewan McGregor’s writer and taunting: “You’re getting awfully nosy, kitty cat.” Unfortunately, The Ghost Writer seems to reveal more questions than answers, even when the true villain is announced courtesy of a dramatic note-passing scene.  For instance, how could the man bringing the charges against Lang not know the information that the writer found with only two Google searches?

Whereas one of the appeals of Chinatown was that Polanski was able to immerse the story in a completely believable 1930s Los Angeles, the world of The Ghost Writer never really feels authentic, even though it takes place in modern times.  There is something about it that just feelsrather off.  One has to wonder whether that has to do with the fact that much of the film takes place in the United States where, for obvious reasons, Polanski hasn’t set foot in years.

There is, however, a lot to like in The Ghost Writer.  As Lang, Pierce Brosnan has that perfect combination of charm with a hint of menace that has you believing him as a politician that everybody voted for that might have some secrets hidden.  In the lead, McGregor is a workable guide for the audience as the writer-turned-investigator.  He also provides the film’s limited humor with some clever, dryly delivered lines.  Unfortunately, his line that most describes the film was “molastic.”

The Ghost Writer moves slowly and the end reveal is not nearly mind-blowing enough to make it worth the monotony (although the final shot is brilliant).  It’s a nice effort that certainly harkens back to the paranoid thrillers of the seventies, but it is not nearly as successful as, say, Michael Clayton.  Sorry, Jake, this is not Chinatown.

The Ghost Writer is rated PG-13 for “language, brief nudity/sexuality, some violence and a drug reference.”  The brief nudity and language is really the concern here as the limited violence mostly occurs off-screen.

Courtesy of a local publicist, Jeff attended a promotional screening of The Ghost Writer.