Movie #160........................."Ghost Writer"

Movie #160 "The Ghost Writer" has been hailed as a terrific film (rottentomatoes.com gave it 81%), but I found it to be so-so. It's been called "Hitchcockian." In the way it is shot, in the look of the film and the use of atmosphere, that seems quite spot on ---- but it does have two faults: the pacing (it's rather slow, and yes you can accuse Hitchcock of that, esp. in his earlier fare) and the main character played by Ewan McGregor. Not much his fault, but the character is pretty silly to me --- I know he's supposed to be James Stewart-like, the common man, but he's more stupid than that. Example: In one big chase, he finally gets away, and what does he do? He looks back -- this might not sound stupid to the reader, but to the viewer of the film who knows that the bad guys (if they see him) could get out the same way he did, he appears goofy. Like a lap dog, he open doors whenever he shouldn't, he tells possible bad guys where he is, he goes wherever anyone tells him to -- I wanted to say "duh" several times, but then if you see him that way throughout the film, it makes the ending somewhat poetic justice. I won't give anything away, but my favorite moment was the very end. So maybe we were supposed to see him as stupid. The problem is that there's less empathy for his character, then; he doesn't seem to be trying so we just see him as man in a mess ad infinitum. I'm surprised critics are hailing this film so much. I didn't think there was much new here at all, except for the ending, and for the use of the GPS (which Hitchcock would have used, if available in his time, in a New York minute). Polanski, you've done better. This is just okay.





Average rating: 3.668
I'd give it 3.5 stars
The Ghost Writer
The Ghost
(2010) PG-13
A writer (Ewan McGregor) stumbles upon a long-hidden secret when he agrees to help former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) complete his memoirs on a remote island after the politician's assistant drowns in a mysterious accident. In director Roman Polanski's tense drama, the author realizes that his discovery threatens some very powerful people who will do anything to ensure that certain episodes from Lang's past remain buried.