The Ghost Writer is a reminder that, regardless of his real-life problems, Roman Polanski can still craft compelling thrillers. This isn’t Chinatown, but it doesn’t need to be. Based on the novel The Ghost by Robert Harris, it’s a fictional tale unambiguously designed to validate various conspiracy theories that have been in existence since the war in Iraq began. The film is effectively paced and does not suffer from the awkward compression problems that sometimes accompany the stripping down of complex novels into two hour motion pictures. There are times when the movie relies upon hard-to-swallow coincidences to propel the narrative forward (the oh-so-convenient appearance of Eli Wallach being one example) but, on the whole, The Ghost Writer holds together. This is especially remarkable when one considers that a significant portion of the post-production was done by Polanski while under arrest.

The film opens with an unoccupied car left abandoned on a ferry while a body washes up on a nearby beach near the Massachusetts retreat of ex-British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan). It turns out that the dead man was the ghost writer of Lang’s autobiography and a replacement has to be found quickly in order to ensure the publication date doesn’t slip. The job goes to the movie’s unnamed protagonist (Ewan McGregor), who finds himself thrust into the midst of a maelstrom of personal and political crises. Lang is about to be charged by the World Court for crimes against humanity, his former close political ally Richard Rycart (Robert Pugh) has turned against him, and his wife, Ruth (Olivia Williams), has lost patience over his brazen affair with his assistant, Amelia (Kim Cattrall). As the Ghost Writer begins to dig, he uncovers information that puts his life in danger.

The ghost apparently enjoys a much more leisurely style of working because he seems very put upon by the whole thing. He is, after all, a writer — an artist — even if his art is massaging the prose of others or even putting words in their mouths.

He’s also a cynic, having done this job often enough to know the difference between the grand ideas that most of his clients put into their books and the way they actually live their lives. As the saying goes, no man is a hero to his valet.

The ghost seems both amused and crabby at the security measures surrounding the first draft of Lang’s memoir, particularly once he has a chance to read it. For one thing, the book itself is both dull and badly written. For another, there seems to be little that could cause a national-security ripple, certainly nothing that warrants the kind of precautions that Lang’s people are taking.

But before he has a real chance to work with Lang — to get material that would actually encourage readers to plow through the entire book — Lang comes under siege in the press and elsewhere. A leaked memo suggests that Lang may have approved the extraordinary rendition of two suspected terrorists, who were arrested in the U.K., then shipped out by the CIA to an undisclosed location, where they were subsequently tortured. One of them, in fact, died.

Before he can respond, the charges escalate and Lang finds the focus of an investigation by the World Court in the Hague, which is threatening him with charges of war crimes. Lang splits from the island refuge to go to Washington, to try to shore up his reputation while fighting extradition. Which leaves the ghost to twiddle his thumbs and, eventually, to decide to pack it in.

The Ghost Writer was originally set to star Nicholas Cage instead of Ewan McGregor, while Pierce Brosnan’s puppet politician in peril possibly manipulated by all sorts of shrouded diabolical forces surrounding him and in a kind of reverse Bond-ing, seems to have the fingerprints of Polanski all over his character. And in a premeditated art imitating life larger fiction. Who knew.