April 1, 2010 -- Roman Polanski may be a pedophile and an international pariah, but he sure knows how to direct movies. More proof of that arrived in Laramie last Friday when Polanski's latest, a combination murder mystery and political thriller belatedly arrived in town. Polanski is still battling extradition to the U.S. for having sex with an underage teenage girl many years his junior, and he is still making award-winning films. As a moral and artistic enigma, he's not in Michael Jackson's league, but he might be closer than many people think. “Ghost Writer,” Polanski's latest, has a sexual encounter between a possibly treacherous woman and a somewhat naive man. I guess that's not too surprising.

The title character, a ghost writer, played by Ewan McGregor of “Angels & Demons” is tempted by a huge salary to clean up the messy memoirs of a former British prime minister, Adam Lang (played by Pierce Brosnan, who played the character James Bond in multiple movies). The former ghost writer on the job died under mysterious circumstances. It begins to look like the first ghost writer was murdered because of what he found out and the new ghost writer's life may also be in danger if he digs too deeply. He goes right ahead and starts sticking his nose into areas that might get him killed, with predictable results. His motive for this dangerous behavior is unclear.

Other key characters in the film are Adam Lang's wife, Ruth (played by Olivia Williams of “An Education”) and Lang's mistress, Amelia Bly (Kim Cattrell of “Sex and the City”). A shadowy conspirator, Paul Emmett (Tom Wilkinson of “Michael Clayton” is an Englishman playing an American who is conspiring against the British, how ironic). The ghost writer's agent, Sidney Kroll, is played by Timothy Hutton of “The Good Shepherd”). Robert Pugh plays a crusading English politician, Robert Rycart, who is trying to get the goods on Lang for illegal torture policies. The 94-year-old Eli Wallach even gets into the act, along with James Belushi (this might be the only good movie Belushi has ever appeared in).

I won't reveal anything more about the plot of this film except to say there are number of loose ends that are not tied up and there are some character motivations that don't add up, either. Nevertheless, the story is compelling enough, the characters are interesting enough, the acting is very good, and Polanski polishes everything until it gleams. This is a very slick, good-looking production. The story also has some political overtones with a conspiracy to explain why a smart guy like Tony Blair would send troops to a war in Iraq when there was no good reason to do such a foolish thing. This film rates a B.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in digital formats, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2010 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
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