Ghost writer

There's an uncredited talent (the ghost of Alfred Hitchcock) at work on The Ghost Writer, a mystery thriller starring Ewan McGregor as a journalist revising the memoirs of an embattled British ex-PM.

Pierce Brosnan fills that role perfectly, which all concerned aver isn't Tony Blair, a ham actor now treading the boards of international political theatre. Talking on a DVD extra, the author of the original novel, Robert (Imperium, Enigma, Pompeii) Harris, claims he had the basic idea before he'd even heard of Blair: a retired statesman charged with war crimes.

The politician's first ghost writer died a mysterious death, and the publishing house's overly naive replacement (McGregor) soon feels alarm. He's joined the ex-PM in an eerie seaside setting (an out-of-season French resort standing in for Martha's Vineyard), together with the politico's calculating wife (a non-Cherie Blair brilliantly portrayed by Olivia Dollhouse Williams). His PA appears to be helpful: Kim Desperate Housewives Cattrall bringing an American marquee name to an otherwise very European movie, directed very stylishly - and as a Hitchcock homage - by Roman Polanski.

During his DVD interview, he notes the story's kinship to Raymond Chandler mysteries. It is a political thriller of unusual depth and relevance. It's also an unusually well-cast movie, with a host of good actors delivering juicy cameos, as if they were guests at a party for Polanski: Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Hutton, James Belushi, Robert Pugh and 94-year-old Eli Wallach.

Polanski's proud of his very visual ending, and Harris is very happy with the cinematic treatment of his novel's conclusion. Not for nothing is the ghost writer never given a name, because that's a major conceit in this genre: the central figure is an Everyman, the audience's representative in the world of intrigue. The movie's good to listen to and watch, good enough to be allowed a little too much self-awareness and one flaw: the final scene mirrors an early red herring too patly, irritatingly because the parallel opening scene is never clarified.