May 24, 2010

The Ghost Writer

Data
Title: The Ghost Writer
Year: 2010
Length: 128 minutes
Director: Roman Polanski
Writers: Roman Polanski & Robert Harris, based on Harris' novel
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Kim Cattrall, Pierce Brosnan, Olivia Williams
Music: Alexandre Desplat

My reaction
Synopsis: a writer working on a former prime minister's memoirs ends up involved in deadly shenanigans
How I saw it: in the theater, yesterday [update: rewatched, on video from Netflix, August 2010]
Concept: Bad.
Story: Great. The final scene could have been better - it's a good ending as far as the mystery goes, but not so good dramatically. The rest of the movie is extremely well written.
Characters: Indifferent. They're more like chess pieces than people.
Dialog: Great.
Pacing: Great.
Cinematography: Indifferent.
Special effects/design: Great.
Acting: Good. I was kind of dreading seeing a movie with both Ewan McGregor AND Pierce Brosnan - I mean, how could that possibly be good? But actually everyone is very good. Also, Brosnan doesn't have a big role.
Music: Great.
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good). A very high 7. I'm not a big fan of the light-on-action-thriller-for-grownups genre, but it's pretty cool to see two movies in a short time (this and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) that do it so well.
Objective Rating: 3.1/4 (Very good).

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