| The Ghost Writer |  | Director: Roman Polanski
Actors: Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Hutton
Studio: Summit Entertainment
Category: DVD
List Price: $26.99
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Rating:  73 reviews
Sales Rank: 256
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Language: English (Original Language)
Genre: mystery-and-suspense
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 1
Discs: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Running Time: 128 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.7
MPN: SUMD66114628D
UPC: 025192067501
EAN: 0025192067501
ASIN: B0036TGSR6
Theatrical Release Date: February 19, 2010
Release Date: August 3, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
WHEN A GIFTED GHOSTWRITER IS HIRED TO WRITE THE MEMOIRS OF FORMER BRITISH PRIME MINISTER ADAM LANG, HE QUICKLY FINDS HIMSELF TRAPPED IN A WEB OF POLITICAL & SEXUAL INTRIGUE.
Oscar-winning director Roman Polanksi (The Pianist) teams up with author-screenwriter Robert Harris (Enigma) for this twisty political thriller. Ewan McGregor plays an unnamed ghostwriter who signs on to pen the memoirs of former British prime minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan). The money is good, but there's a catch: the ghost's predecessor perished under mysterious circumstances (his body washed up on the shore in an apparent suicide). Being the adventurous sort, the ghost puts that information aside and travels to Lang's austere compound on Martha's Vineyard, where he meets Lang's efficient personal secretary, Amelia (Kim Cattrall, good but for an inconsistent accent), and acerbic wife, Ruth (An Education's Olivia Williams). Just as he's wading through Lang's dull text, the PM's ex-cabinet minister accuses him of handing over suspected terrorists to the CIA, fully aware that torture would be on the agenda. The next thing the ghost knows, he's working for a possible war criminal, and the deeper he digs, the more convinced he becomes that Lang is lying about his past. After exchanging a few words with a sharp-eyed old man (Eli Wallach) and a tight-lipped professor (Tom Wilkinson), he realizes his life may also be at risk. Then, while Lang hits the road to proclaim his innocence, the ghost gets to know Ruth better--much better. If the conclusion feels a little glib, Polanksi tightens the screws with skill, McGregor enjoys his best role in years, and Williams proves she's fully prepared to carry a movie of her own. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 73
 Anti-war, anti-American propaganda September 3, 2010
G. DAVIS (Fremont, Ca United States)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Offered here for our disapproval is a contemptible former British Prime Minister, a revisionist's Tony Blair amorally in bed with a mistress and with the evil U.S. in its war vs. terrorism. This one-dimensional character's alleged "crime against humanity" was the rendering of a couple of British Islamic terror suspects to the diabolical CIA for interrogation. A suspect dies in custody. While not presented as the cause of death, waterboarding is mentioned repeatedly and becomes a focal point of this story's self-righteous wrath.
It is a matter of debate whether waterboarding, which produces plenty of physical and psychological stress but causes no physical harm, is torture. Yet this "crime" is judged in the movie's court of public opinion by anti-war zealots and media without the movie offering an opposing viewpoint.
A more intellectually honest script would have presented the moral dilemma between the wartime pursuit of mass murderers whose main tactic is targeting civilians vs. preserving the civil liberties that such pursuit endangers. These worthy and sometimes-conflicting endeavors deserve at least cursory examination here. Just a few lines among the PM's own inner circle explaining to the audience his rationales could suffice. The most we get is the PM's brief and shallow statement about the "defense of freedom," intentionally presented to us as a vapid media sound bite. His cooperation is simplistically presented as definitional evil as if no justification could possibly exist.
It is that one-sided presentation of a clearly controversial matter that makes this movie as propagandistic as if it were approved for public consumption by the Iranian Supreme Court. It assumes unquestioning agreement by the audience of its central theme -- that waterboarding is torture and a crime against humanity. That may be a "fact" to the anti-war crowd, but not to us all, and it's a lie to present it as such.
 Truly Hitchcockian handling that brings a dry script alive with sauce. September 2, 2010
Tahseen Nakavi (Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India)
Few years back, I was mesmerised by his brilliant 'Pianist'. It was refreshing to see 'The Ghost Writer' this year . I saw it twice in three days and this film replaces all before it as the Film Of The Year. Truly Hitchcockian. What attention to details! Build up and suspense is truly magnetic. Embellished by an outstanding musical score by Alexandre Desplat. Hear it. Roman Polanski has handled this script with an ease like Alfred Hitchcock would have done with Saboteur and The Man who Knew Too Much. I was first bowled over by Polanski's 'Rosemary's Baby' and 'The Tenant'. This film is in the true tradition of how a tale has to be told even if the tale has political overtones. Any other director would have found the going dry and tough. Ewan Mcgregor, I always felt had the potential to deliver; and he has done greatly. Pierce Brosnan is adequate. Good supporting work from Timothy Hutton, James Belushi and Tom Wilkinson. Let me get back to Polanski who is the Master Director here and excellent work by Aexandre Desplat. The visuals are breathtaking and perfect for the sombre mood of the script. The music is a perfect fit to this suspensul cocktail of a tale.
 The message is in the beginning of the movie August 31, 2010
PristineAngie_dot_com (NYC)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Within the first five minutes, if you watch the characters talk in the book publishing office, you will gain an appreciation of how Polanski uses casting to relay the message of this movie. I won't give it away, but look at race, age, and accent, and you may be able to decipher subtle metaphors of how different countries stand in relation to each other today.
Down to the two Asian caretakers who are sweeping up the mess even as the wind blows.
I've been a fan of Polanski's work, ever since his first jazzy, beat Knife in the Water in 1962. As with that film - this exiled director returns to a taut, tension-strung method of story telling. In the extra, he himself references Raymond Chandler, whose signature is that sense of the diabolical, lying just beneath an uneasy calm. There are no huge car chases with exploding barriers and Parkour jumps across buildings, the CGI is reserved for static backdrops (window vistas) and scenery color.
A noteworthy ensemble, combined with Polish cinematographer Pawel Edelman's (The Life Before Her Eyes) gorgeous steel grey landscape, and Alexandre Desplat's Philip Glassian score complement each other. McGregor's nameless ghost does make many careless albeit convincing mistakes as a writer who apparently has no clue about the company he is in - international espionage, CIA, etc.
An august Eli Wallach makes a delightful cameo.
Low Key Thriller That Pulls You In and Keeps You In August 27, 2010
Jym Cherry (Wheaton, IL United States)
Roman Polanski`s movies don`t ordinarily lend themselves to autobiographical insight. In The Ghostwriter Polanski dabbles at the edge of autobiography in the character of Adam Lang, a former British Prime Minister exiled from England and subject to arrest in most of the world due to war crime accusations. Perhaps it is this convergence of art and autobiography that lead to Polanski's recent legal developments.
Ewan McGregor is a ghostwriter to Pierce Brosnan's Adam Lang who is facing war crimes charges in the Hague. McGregor is hired as a "ghost" to rewrite Lang's memoirs after the accidental death of the previous ghostwriter. McGregor inadvertently finds evidence that the death of his predecessor wasn't so accidental and they've both stumbled upon a secret of Lang's early political career that would cast a different shadow on his legacy as Prime Minister.
This is a thriller that isn't based all on action, car chases, shootouts, or explosions. It's a thriller that pulls you in because of the intrigue of the characters and the events that are created by them or are pulled into. The two male leads of McGregor and Brosnan are two excellent performances. McGregor gives a nuanced performance as "the ghost" as the only name he's given in the movie, a slightly disheveled writer who doesn't know what he's gotten himself into. Brosnan is right on as the former Prime Minister. A man who has had days in power, but still has the self-possessed confidence and retains the subliminal air of authority that everybody looks to when he enters the room. Kim Cattrall is a surprise as Amelia Bly, Lang's assistant. Even though it's suggested that she may have been or is Lang's lover, Cattrall shows here that she can play more than the sexpot or coquette that she has played in "Sex and The City." Timothy Hutton is good as he is in almost anything he does and it's too bad his part wasn't larger. Eli Wallach has a cameo as a crotchety old man who gets McGregor's ghost to start questioning what's going on.
The Ghostwriter isn't a flashy thriller that throws special effects, or car chases at you. As a matter of fact the only would be car chase is aborted because `the ghost' pulls his car off the road and lets the chasing car pass him. The intrigue and thrilling elements are delivered by the situation these characters find themselves in and how the events occur and how the characters struggle to find the resolution to the puzzle.
The DVD bonus features are minimal but give you a nice look inside the production of The Ghostwriter. They include an interview with screenwriter Robert Harris on how he came upon the idea of The Ghostwriter and how it evolved into its final form. A 10 minute interview with the major cast members about their characters, and an interview with Polanski on what he saw in The Ghostwriter.
 Good story, well acted, well directed August 23, 2010
C. Fabella (St. Louis, MO)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
But filled with very unsubtle statements about America plotting decades in advance to insert a CIA-controlled British PM in place for the Iraq-Afghanistan wars (because we saw that one coming, of course). Well, take it for what it is. Anti-American propaganda directed by a man who has been a fugitive from American justice for over 30 years. Disappointing to see Liam Neeson involved in this; we love his Long Way motorcycles movies.
But you notice that I can be honest about the quality of the movie -- I'm able to keep my head screwed on straight even when I disagree with someone. Let hope others will display the same courtesy when reviewing conservative movies, books, etc.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 73
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