More of a B-movie thriller seemingly made for TV than a late era gem by an ersatz cinematic titan, Roman Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer” is a deeply flawed and ill-conceived blunder maligned by poor performances coupled with a generic and tepid script. Buzz from Berlin where it premiered has been much the same, and the film is definitely a fairly big misstep.
On some levels it’s a near embarrassment and there are multiple ridiculous moments that produce unintentional laughter. Some will argue Polanski — always in possession of a devilish sense of humor — is purposefully going for some moments of wry comedy and they’re probably right, but it simply never works in favor of the film and just feels silly or even lameduck in the worst manner.
Compromised because the filmmaker was in prison during its post-production, this still doesn’t excuse the disengaged performances and endlessly unnecessary sequences and shots that should have been ditched at the storyboard stage (one laborious and nearly never-ending sequence practically gives a GPS system its own cameo).
That said, the editors do this clumsy, telegraphed and obvious thriller absolutely no favors with scenes extended to the point where one thinks about stopping, turning to their audience neighbor and asking, “Why the hell are we still here?” These lingering scenes that mark the entire film rob the picture of any tautness and thrills, providing what is mostly a clockwatching experience in full-blown banality.
If you thought Ewan McGregor could not pick a worse project if it fell on top of him you would be sadly mistaken. That said the Scottish lead is probably the best part of the picture (which isn’t saying a lot). He stars as “The Ghost” (no really, he’s essentially nameless throuhout), a hack professional ghost writer who pens or fixes self-fellating autobiographies and makes them passable for mass consumption. His wormy and unctuous agent — who steals every scene with him in his hilariously bad, yet amusing performance — somehow manages to score him an audience with the publishers for the in-progress autobiography of Adam Lang (Pierce Bronsan, who apparently has lost his British accent and painfully tries to reconstitute it), a former British PM with a spotty track record and a penchant for being a U.S. lapdog (in short, a not so thinly-veiled version of Tony Blair).
McGregor’s writer is seemingly ill-equipped for the job as he is a political ignoramus. But his impassioned argument is that his political callowness is exactly what will allow him to properly lionize the PM as an icon and human, and it convinces the American publishers — represented by a comically boorish Jim Belushi — who have already spent a fortune, that he is the man for the gig.
Oh, but there is a hitch. Lang’s former aide and ghost writer, has just died in a mysterious alcohol related drowning, or suicide attempt, no one seems to be quite sure. No sooner has the Ghost accepted the high paying job, he’s attacked outside of the publisher’s offices and the manuscript he’s been given — another book that has nothing to do with Lang’s — is stolen from him. Something obviously augurs poorly here, but the Ghost has to quickly catch a plane and fly to the U.S to meet his subject, so there’s no time to dwell on this bad omen.
Once in America, he comes to the PM’s luxurious and highly security-guarded compound on the East Coast and quickly meets the staff led by the loyal and officious Kim Cattral who inexplicably trys to pull off a British accent (McGregor does a commendable job of putting on a straight-face the entire time she speaks). Also present in the modern and spacious island retreat is Lang’s icy and perennially dissatisfied wife played by Olivia Williams (“Rushmore”) who struggles to rise above the mediocre harridan material she’s given.
After a few false starts on the hagiography, McGregor and Brosnan try and put on some interview sessions which will become the basis for the book and at one point Lang tells the writer — in these otherwise inert and dull scenes — that he had zero interest in politics, but fell into it because of a girl, now his wife.
In the middle of these sessions, as if right on cue for end of act 1 difficulties, the politician becomes engulfed in a political scandal when a former British Secretary accuses Lang of colluding with the CIA and handing over terrorist suspects in what turned out to be a larger torture scandal (shades of Abu Ghraib). Appealing to the International Criminal Courts (ICC), Lang all of a sudden finds himself to be a potential war criminal and the Ghost writer’s suddenly becomes entangled in this media field day. Naturally, the book abruptly becomes a hot property and further complications arise when his publishers want its already rushed deadline turned around abnormally fast and as a defense of these scandalous allegations.
To make a drawn-out tedious story shorter, the longer McGregor’s character explores his subject via the biography, the deeper he finds himself embroiled in the political intrigue, which leads to deeper and larger conspiracies that have global implications between the relationship of the U.S. and the U.K. Tonally it feels off, none of it is very believable or worse, very interesting.
These various collusions also become sexual when the writer is forced to live at the holed-away compound for safety’s sake and becomes involved with the PM’s wife. As much as these sexual tension scenes can be seen coming from a mile away, the actual act of coitus is a groaning, “are you kidding” Michael Crichton-worthy plot twist (in fact much of its dated tone feels not dissimilar to Tom Cruise’s ’90s thriller, “The Firm.”)
From there, “The Ghost Writer” gets more daffy with its genuinely suspenseful tone constantly undercut by silly and unbelievable twists and turns.
While many have seemingly praised Alexandre Desplat’s score it, like the movie, feels rushed, thrown together and full of cheap feigning and red herring maneuvers. And early on in fact, it feels artlessly slapped on top of scenes. There are even a few scenes where it feels like Desplat was blindfolded or was writing to no picture (which is entirely conceivable given Polanski’s arrest during post-production).
Polanski does know movie craft, and the concluding sequence does evince some rather artful camera moves and mise-en-scene — despite a highly laughable ending — but most of the picture has everything laid out, underlined and highlighted for the audience to follow along.
For all its attempts at being tense and affecting, Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer,” is generally commonplace, largely uninvolving and ultimately forgettable. The director might have been in the news in recent months for 30-year-old crimes, but it’s safe to say, “The Ghost Writer” is his most glaring felony in recent years. Buyer beware. [C-]