(2010) As if intended to coincide with the release of Tony Blair's memoir, A Journey, and questions about the UK's subservience to US interests in the Middle East as well as with terrorists, director Roman Polanski's political thriller (screenplay co-written with Robert Harris, adapting the latter's novel, The Ghost) begins with the hiring of a ghostwriter (Ewan McGregor) to complete the memoir of the former British prime minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan). Notice how in the film's title "ghostwriter" became separated into two words, while McGregor's character was never given a proper name. Admittedly lacking any political experience but emphasizing the need for "heart" to sell an autobiography, he's chosen because "You're fast, you deliver," says John Maddox (James Belushi), the chief executive of Rhinehart Inc.

The writer's predecessor, Mike McAra, who had been Lang's loyal aide, drowned while intoxicated, apparently either an accident or suicide. Under contract for four weeks with payment of a quarter of a million dollars plus expenses, in mid January the ghostwriter is transported to a remote-island location off the coast of New York to a house owned by publisher Marty Rhinehart where he's greeted by Lang's assistant, Amelia Bly (Kim Cattrall) and his wife Ruth (Olivia Williams), between which sexual tension is tautly stretched.

Given six hours to read through the existing manuscript before Lang's arrival, he makes a face just as Ruth (who will later tell him that she recommended him for the job) enters the room: "How bad is it?" "All the words are there," he replies: "They're just in the wrong order." Upon Lang's arrival, the retired PM asks: "Who are you?" "I'm your ghost."

A breaking story on the news reports that leaked documents indicate that Lang as prime minister had authorized British special forces to seize four suspected al-Qaeda terrorists, who had British citizenship, in Pakistan before turning them over to the CIA to be interrogated and tortured, resulting in one man's death.

During the initial session of the ghost's interviews with Lang, the politician (who had not seemed like a politician at the outset of his career in the mid-1970s) says he went into politics from acting in college out of love for a woman, Ruth, not for ideology or party. This turns out to be false.

Saying he's not acting out of personal animosity - "This is about justice" - former foreign minister Richard Rycart (Robert Pugh), whom Lang had fired, presses for the International Criminal Court at The Hague to investigate Lang for war crimes and crimes against humanity. With all the publicity surrounding the former prime minister, Maddox informs the ghost that he now has just two weeks to have the manuscript ready for publication.

Before he's brought to the big house and installed in McAra's former bedroom, when the hotel fills up with members of the media, the ghost encounters an older man in the Fisherman's Cove Inn, which at the time had no other guest than himself, whom he later sees among the peace protesters on TV, a former career military officer angry that his son was killed in Iraq.

While clearing out his predecessor's effects, the ghost finds an envelope with photos taped underneath a dresser drawer; he rides a bicycle in the rain to the location where McAra's body had washed ashore; he questions an old man (Eli Wallach) about the incident, learning some disturbing details that raise further suspicions.

When Ruth (herself with ambitions to become "a proper politician"?), accompanied by her security escort, finds him (having ambitions to become "a proper writer"?), she imparts that her husband (who has gone to Washington, DC, with Bly because the US is among the few countries that doesn't recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC) and McAra had had a row prior to Mike's death; the following day after spending the night with Ruth, the ghost returns to the hotel (emptied of the press) because remaining in the house would make it "hard to maintain a professional distance."

He takes the BMW McAra had last driven with the final destination still programmed in the vehicle's onboard memory, following the directions to the secluded home of Harvard professor Paul Emmett (Tom Wilkinson) back on the mainland. In the aftermath of a car chase back to the ferry, the ghost's further research turns up unexpected connections with the CIA and a large defense contractor, the Hatherton Group (suggestive of Halliburton?). Feeling trapped, the ghost contacts Rycart, who offers assurance: "You're not working for Lang anymore. You're working for the good guys."

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