A hack writer charged with ghosting the memoirs of a British prime minister finds himself on dangerous ground in Roman Polanski's screen version of the Robert Harris novel. The mysterious demise of his predecessor sees Ewan McGregor's unnamed ghostwriter dispatched to the American hideaway of Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), who's keen to set the record straight on a premiership clouded by contentious policies on Iraq. It's when the persistent McGregor - in his sparkiest turn in ages - uncovers more than he should that the plot kicks into prime Polanski paranoid thriller gear, where potential threat and betrayal turn the rain-swept surroundings into a landscape of fear. The parallels with the Blair years are mischievously upfront (though Brosnan's witty charm offensive is certainly no impersonation), while the notion of rewriting the past surely also has resonance for Polanski, with his own ongoing legal travails. All that matters less, however, than the film's entertaining mastery of Hitchcockian unease, delivering sheer viewing pleasure from a slightly clunky plot. Piquant supporting performances (Olivia Williams is seductively controlling as Brosnan's wife; Tom Wilkinson makes a suavely evasive academic) are a significant bonus in a film that confirms even second-rank Polanski as a notch above most contemporary rivals in the suspense stakes.