Roman Polanski’s thriller is like a video version of a middle-brow novel of the sort that consumes that portion of the bestseller list not consumed with diet books, polemics, and memoirs. Maybe like one written by Robert Harris, whose novel he helped Polanski adapt. I’m not meaning to insult the movie, just saying it’s lighter fare than Oliver Twist or The Pianist, the director’s last two films. But it’s easy to like, so long as you’re not Tony Blair. Blair is not the name of the character played by Pierce Brosnan. He’s supposed to be some other recent ex-prime minister who’s accused of shipping off terrorist suspects for some CIA-approved torture. Come to think of it, foreign-policy conservatives may not love the movie either, since the idea that it’s okay to do that is never entertained. The only questions are what the prime minister did, and how soon Ewan McGregor is going to dig around and figure it out.
McGregor is the title character, who gets hired to finish the prime minister’s memoirs when the original writer dies in an accident. Sorry, an “accident.” Although Polanski, unable to work in America or the UK, could have set the movie in Europe, he fairly successfully re-creates the atmosphere of London and Martha’s Vineyard, where the prime minister shares a compound with his intelligent and mysterious wife (Olivia Williams) and his assistant (Kim Cattrall). Most of the movie take place in the US.
The plot skirts skirts the edge of the plausible, and probably goes over it, but doesn’t insult your intelligence. At the very least, it’s a thriller whose thrills don’t depend on car chases and explosions, and one that delivers a surprise or two.
IMDB link
viewed 3/24/10 at Ritz East and reviewed 4/6/10
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