.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

It is unfortunate that very few reviews of a Roman Polanski film will be ever be written with referring to the director's troubles and warrant for his arrest after having sex with a minor before fleeing to Europe. Even I, who want to stay away from the topic to focus on the work, find myself typing this reference in the opening paragraph to his new film, The Ghost Writer. But that is where the references end.

In Polanski's latest effort, The Ghost Writer, Ewan McGregor plays 'the ghost', a ghost writer hired by the publishers and handlers of Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) the former Prime Minister of England living in a form of exile in America.

McGregor is hired after his predecessor who had developed a 600-page unedited manuscript is mysteriously found washed up on the beach. Speculation runs amok as to whether the original writer was murdered or committed suicide and assumptions and conjectures lead McGregor's character to an investigation of the events while attempting to maintain the one-month deadline for the submission of the memoirs/biography.

His revelations will unfold the many layers to both the origin story of Adam Lang and his rise to political power while enveloped in a conspiracy that includes the CIA, arms funding and the torture of prisoners during the country's war on terror excursions in the Middle East.

Very slow and methodical, The Ghost Writer is both a tense and complicated thriller that takes no short cuts in its two plus hours running time to eventually get to the final reveals. Polanski can be considered at master at this art. Chinatown and Frantic are two examples of strong character development wrapped around a complex screenplay that may alienate some viewers due to the conscious effort not to talk down to its audience.

McGregor adequately fulfills the role as the inquisitive and challenged ghostwriter, but it is Brosnan and Olivia Williams as Adam and Ruth Lang that really supplant the movie in believability. Brosnan's Lang is an enigma that has temper flare ups combined with the savvy of an elected and targeted official. And William's as his conflicted wife is just as mysterious in actions and motivation.

The Ghost Writer will play as one of Polanski's quieter works. When his career is long over, Chinatown and The Pianist will get all the obit notices. But Death and the Maiden and The Ghost Writer should equally be studied for their use of everything from heavy dialogue to uneven and demanding characters that draw out mixed emotions from their audience.

While screening The Ghost Writer, I heard as many yawns and snores both in front and behind my seating that I have encountered in my career of movie watching. The audience on a whole didn't seem to get the grasp of the complexities and the fun in the unwinding of the story. Maybe it was the 9:30am start time. Or maybe, audiences were not anticipating a film that made Michael Clayton look like a Bourne entry.

Either way, The Ghost Writer is an above average film that grips those willing to allow themselves to get involved and doesn't have any big climax in a low-brow attempt to apologize to an audience for their patience.