I actually didn’t realize The Ghost Writer was directed by Roman Polanski until the Blu Ray came from Netflix and I nearly sent it back because I have a thing about not watching movies made by child rapists (this is an entirely separate rant). However, as he is now in jail and hopefully will soon be transferred to the “Burly Man Wing” of a prison with lax guards and I was not paying money for the film…..plus I was bored, I watched it.
Grudgingly, I have to say, this was a great movie. Really, truly great thriller that kept me engrossed from opening to stunning end. The film is about a ghost writer (Ewan McGregor doing something for once worthy of his talent) hired to finish the memoirs of a disgraced British PM (Pierce Brosnan) after his predecessor winds up mysteriously dead. It’s not a huge movie, it’s not a flashy movie, but it’s smart and well-plotted and has an ending I can’t go on about with out ruining it. The PM in the film is clearly meant to be Tony Blair. It’s so thinly veiled that it’s meant to be Tony Blair that I really don’t understand why they didn’t just call him Tony Blair. At any rate, I had little to no expectations surrounding The Ghost Writer and was pleasantly suprised at how smart it was.
8.75/10
Killing Time 