-By Rex Roberts

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As its title suggests, The Ghost Writer is a professional job, a well-made thriller that delivers two hours of slick entertainment. Then again, as its title suggests, The Ghost Writer is rather generic, with little originality and less personality. Roman Polanski and his co-writer Robert Harris, the best-selling author of the novel, spin a good yarn and sustain tension, even supply a couple of surprises for their autographic dénouement (parse the puns in that phrase and save yourself the price of admission). Nevertheless, the movie feels as though it’s been plotted by numbers—letters, that is—and the filmmakers more than thrice call upon contrivance to coax their story along. Indeed, the entire intrigue hinges upon our eponymous hero—and you, dear viewer—distinguishing the plural from the singular, so you’d best be literal, if not literate, if you plan to descrabble this political whodunit.

Speaking of whodunits (or whatofits), Polanski finished cutting The Ghost Writer (with his longtime editor Hervé de Luze) while under house arrest in Switzerland, awaiting a ruling on the infamous warrant for his arrest and extradition to the United States. (The movie is set on Martha’s Vineyard but was filmed, convincingly, in Germany.) That circumstance might account for The Ghost Writer’s claustrophobic sensibility and its protagonist’s progressive isolation, except that almost all of Polanski’s characters find themselves in similar situations. Self-imposed confinement, suspicion metastasizing into paranoia, compromising sexual indiscretion…it’s all here, The Ghost Writer neatly falling into place in the director’s oeuvre. But Polanski must devote too much energy explicating a complex narrative to dwell on his usual obsessions, and he seems to have mellowed, in any case. We’re engaged, but not disturbed, by the action unfolding before us, and there’s little ambiguity about the ghost writer’s mental state: He damn well is being played for a patsy; the only question is, who’s directing the show?

Ewan McGregor would seem ideal for the lead, his turn as the dissipated gen-Xer in Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave portending future work with directors such as Polanski, but he doesn’t bring much to the role. He’s too callow and coy to make us believe he’s a high-powered scribe hired to fix the memoirs of an international statesman, and he’s too cool and collected to elicit our concern when he finds himself in troubled waters (or the “inky dark sea” that sums up the film’s mise-en-scène). Co-star Pierce Brosnan is better as the former British prime minister clumsily accounting for his life and work even as the International Criminal Court indicts him for war crimes, but he is made to cower and whine whenever he watches some new outrage on the telly. (World leaders get their news from CNN and the BBC, just like us!) The two actors haven’t any onscreen chemistry—the script doesn’t give them anything to work with—so we can’t care about them as people, only as pawn and king in an admittedly interesting chess match between…well, we’re back to wondering who, exactly, are moving the pieces.

Here’s the game summary: McGregor, the ghost, has been tasked with rewriting the memoirs of Adam Lang, the ex-PM, his original collaborator having committed (cough) suicide. Lang is on a speaking tour in the U.S., so the ghost flies to his command post on the island, a bunker-like beach house owned by Lang’s rich publisher (who is into the pol for $10 million in advances). The ghost accidentally uncovers evidence that suggests that Lang, accused of ordering the torture of alleged terrorists, has a far more scandalous secret in his distant past. To complicate matters, Ruth Lang (Olivia Williams) is jealous over her husband’s glossy chief of staff (Kim Cattrall) and seems to want to work out her frustrations with the cute new guy. That the attractive wife of a powerful man might choose to sleep with the writer strains our willing suspension of disbelief, but it turns out she has good reason to keep our ghost under close supervision. What follows is the slow revelation of odious covert dealings at the highest level…although let’s face facts: Is anyone anywhere shocked, shocked, to learn that the power-mad CIA and evil arms-merchant Halliburton (cunningly disguised as a company named Hatherton) are out to further their interests under the guise of protecting the free world? We are on to you, boys!

Williams delivers the film’s best performance (a striking contrast to her equally good turn as the schoolmarm in An Education). Nonagenarian Eli Wallach makes a superb cameo appearance as an old salt speaking truth to power, and Tom Wilkinson is, as always, entertaining as the obligatory Anglo-Satan (cunningly disguised as a Harvard professor). Polanski does what he can to creep us out, working in eerie grace notes that are the best reasons to watch The Ghost Writer. Audiences will remember the ancient caretaker endlessly sweeping debris from the outdoor deck more than any of the set-pieces that, more often than not, seem to have been conjured by ghost screenwriters in central scripting.