The Ghost Writer (2010)

Director: Roman Polanski
Writer: Robert Harris and Roman Polanski (Adaption and Screenplay) based on Robert Harris' novel "The Ghost"
Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, Olivia Williams, Ewan McGregor
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller

There's no doubt Roman Polanski is a very skilled director, which movies like Chinatown speaks of them self. The Ghost Writer have a remarkable elegant opening, in fact one of the better ones I can remember from the top of my head. Polanski also does an excellent job getting the mood and feel of the movie under the skin of his audience, and that's from my point of view the two best compliments I can give this one.

At the end of the day the script isn't interesting enough. I don't care much about either involved. And while I do take an interest in the political side of the plot, it's not as intriguing without a connection with the people in question, In other words: That part of the story would have worked better in a TV-show setting where we had some ties with the characters built up prior. As it's now I really don't get interested enough in the former Prime Minister, the accusations of war crimes, his memoirs or even the ghost writer.

To say that I'm not a huge fan of Kim Cattrall or Pierce Brosnan would be an understatement, but I can easily bare with the performances Polanski have managed to get out of both. Also McGregor and Williams does well, but a lot more impressive is the fact I could take seriously both the part of James Belushi ("According to Jim") and that of Timothy Hutton ("Leverage"). It's also good minor performances from Tom Wilkinson and Eli Wallach, but in their cases that's more of an "as usual" unlike so many of the others.

I think Polanski managed to get a lot out of his actors and actresses, and he established the needed atmosphere for the genre. The rest is sadly quite average, but maybe the problem might have been more about my expectations than Polanski's delivery.