'Allo?

This review is about 2 weeks too late… I simply didn’t get around to seeing The Ghost before this week. I won’t go into huge amounts of detail but I couldn’t let the film pass without congratulating that chameleon of accents Ewan McGregor on perfecting another dialect. Those of you who saw Ewan in Woddy Allen’s Cassandra’s Dream will have heard his cock-er-knee accent before. Add this to his “American” in The Men Who Stare At Goats and his Oirish in Angels And Demons and quite the CV is emerging. I still think Ewan McGregor is good with good material, Young Adam or Trainspotting for example. It’s just that his last few films have been pretty bad and he can never seem to rise above bad material. What’s interesting is that the choices he makes are usually understandable. Roman Polanski and Woody Allen are two directors every actor wants to work with and, I would imagine regardless of the script, chances are you’ll say yes to working with them. It’s just a pity these are two of the worst films of their careers. Same with Tim Burton. And who is going to turn down the chance of appearing in the Star Wars universe? Or to work for a presumably healthy payday alongside Tom Hanks for Ron Howard? It just seems to keep happening that the films end up being terrible and he’s bad in them. And it’s a shame because, as I say, he can be good and in person he comes off really well whenever I see him interviewed.

In fairness, in The Ghost he’s well matched by Pierce Brosnan and Kim Cattrell and even Olivia Williams, who comes out of the film better than anyone, kind of just has to hit one note for the entire film. The Ghost is plodding and dull. There is the germ of a good story in there and maybe the book is more interesting. But at two hours long with very little happening, Polanski’s film is a slog.

The best joke made about it was on Have I Got News For You when (I think it was Alexander Armstrong) quipped that The Ghost is a 15…but Polanski was sure it was an 18. The old ones are the best.

3/10