Right up front, GHOST WRITER is just a superb paranoid thriller. It is. It isn't retro, it is totally modern, while making one a bit nostalgic for the paranoid political thrillers of the seventies... not because this film isn't as good as those, but because other than this, those are the remaining superb paranoid thrillers.

In many ways, GHOST WRITER is one part NORTH BY NORTHWEST. Not because there's a mistaken identity, not because it is light hearted, there isn't either. No, it reminds me of that in the way that a guy that isn't looking to get into anything, gets into the big something! Kind of like Polanski's FRANTIC. This time though, it isn't a missing wife... this time it is curiosity that gets our Ghost Writer, played by Ewan to perfection. You see, a former Prime Minister of the UK is writing a biography and his previous Ghost is really a Ghost and I don't mean Casper. Ewan is a best selling biography ghost writer who didn't want the gig, but hell, he ain't gonna turn down $250k up front.

Now, once you end up on this little island, in the midst of a scandal... and suspicious things land in your lap... and you've a creative mind... a curious nature... a nose for a story... DUDE - DON'T FIND OUT MORE! That's a key to living longer. You're writing the biography of one of the most powerful men in modern history, that was a puppet leader for a right honest son of a bitch of the highest order... DON'T BE CURIOUS! Ewan's playing a guy that's a hack... listen to Bogart... don't stick your neck out... period. But that'd be a boring safe story. That isn't this story.

The potential bad guys abound, but the thing that I loved - was watching the process... the point from where he's hired, shoved on a plane, another plane, a boat, a car and then there's the non-disclosure clauses, the locked room with a manuscript that can't leave the room... well... All these meticulous details are shown in such a matter of fact manner that I couldn't help but sympathize with Ewan's Ghost. Hell, I've gotten onto planes when I didn't know where I was going to be landing. And it was a long flight. There's a creepiness when you're doing it for movie people, I can't imagine the sensation of going through the process with the extra paranoia related to a politician. Well, I can. Here it is.

There's a voyeuristic quality to the film. The way a stranger is placed into a home, placed in another's life, treated as hired help, used outside his employed capacity professionally... yeah, this felt right. The way one is absorbed into a process. All so natural, so believable... But then, things start not adding up. And that's the awful part. When you realize there's something rotten in the home you're living. When the room you're given has its own ghost's ghosts - reaching out for attention. That's here. That drawer you shouldn't have opened out of bored frustration. Being where you don't want to be, writing what you don't want to write. Ewan nails it.

Once you take the first nibble of that apple of knowledge, you're fucked though. Ewan's character begins wondering. Getting curious. It is the primary instinct of a writer... it is a process of questions and answers, and once you ask a question, you'll investigate the answers. And investigating curious questions with former Prime Ministers... well, could be somebody could get dead... and usually the people you least think as ending up that way.

This film is a film for the curious that don't want the risk. For people that love whodunwhuts. For people that fear the government, distrust politicians and believe there's something evil underneath it all. For all those people that appreciate a page turner that's crackling there's GHOST WRITER - I believe it is expanding this week, so if you find a hole in your Olympics fever, other than SHUTTER ISLAND, there's no better new release. Truly fantastic movie.