**Major Spoilers Coming**

Budgeted at $45 million, “The Ghost Writer” is yet another (by my count: 17) multi-million dollar sortie in Leftist Hollywood’s ongoing effort to enable the evil of terrorism by siding against the West. And for this reason, what starts out as the witty, fast-paced and involving story of a young writer (a charming Ewan McGregor) hired to aid former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) to write his memoirs, quickly gets buried under the trappings of a muddled and ultimately, very stupid thriller.

In Polanski’s morally confused world, saving innocent lives with the use of water boarding is an absolute wrong and Prime Minister Tony Blair’s decision (he’s quite obviously the Brosnan character) to join America in the liberating of 25 million innocent Iraqis can only mean that he’s Bush’s poodle and a stooge for the CIA – a CIA that we’re told is always working against America’s best interest because of their Middle East policies and, yes, support of missile defense.

This is the cinematic equivalent of the three-bank shot of stupid.  And stupid isn’t thrilling. But stupid can be funny and when the Condi Rice lookalike shows up, it rises to laugh-out-loud funny.

The shame of it all is that thanks to expert pacing and McGregor’s superb performance, “The Ghost Writer” starts out quite promising — as a smart, efficient, fish-out-of-water story that grabs hold of your attention for nearly forty minutes as McGregor’s “Ghost” (we never learn his name) is pulled from an everyday existence and thrust into Lang’s political world set in a large, sterile Oceanside home on the Northeastern coast of the United States.

As the last minute replacement for the previous writer (a close friend of Lang’s who accidentally drowned), McGregor’s under enormous pressure to meet an impossible one month deadline. In Lang’s topsy-turvy existence focus would be difficult under normal circumstances but almost immediately a media siege begins after the World Court announces they’re considering indicting Lang as a war criminal for shipping four terrorists out of the country for a little of the ole’ water boarding.

It’s at this turning point that the narrative begins to takes on two fatal problems. The first is that to those of us who think differently than the left — say, for example, our disagreement over whether or not child rapists belong in jail even when they direct movies – Brosnan’s Lang did nothing wrong. And so you sit there wondering what all the hullaballoo’s about. In the real moral world what’s evil is not doing whatever’s necessary to interrogate those who murder the innocent and giving up your national sovereignty to the unholy World Court.

Sure, there’s a murder, but it quickly becomes an afterthought in all the proselytizing and it’s an unmotivated murder to boot — to cover up Lang’s ties to a CIA agent who in turn’s involved in (you knew this was coming) a Halliburtonish multi-national corporation. The weight given to these silly reveals is laughable. I’m sure in a fever-dream as he’s spooning with Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann would gasp. But the only crime Lang appears to be guilty of is in allowing himself to be influenced by those who think winning the war against Islamo-fascism is a good thing.

The second problem is a narrative structure that’s sequenced in a way that loses track of what the movie wants to be about. Just as the discovery phase of the story appears to begin when McGregor finds an envelope full of clues, all the intrigue goes off-track for a long and ultimately pointless seduction sequence involving Lang’s bitter, lonely, insecure wife (Olivia Williams). As with all the weight given to McGregor’s deadline, in the end this “romantic” subplot has nothing to do with the overall plot which leaves you with an unsatisfied aftertaste.

McGregor’s character also lacks the emotional turning point that helps to make ultimate sense of his actions. In one scene he expresses a complete lack of interest in doing any of the investigative reporting necessary to unravel the truth. But in the next, he literally risks his life doggedly questioning and entering the home of a man he suspects is a murderer. One of the most important and satisfying of thriller moments is the protagonist’s chilling realization of the stakes involved in whatever he’s gotten himself into. That just never happens. Eventually, McGregor’s character loses most of his steam because too much of his time is spent reacting as opposed to making things happen.

After 17 films and a perfect 100% failure rate, you have to wonder if the amoral degenerates who produce this junk aren’t starting to wonder why all their hard work and financial investment always results in a completely forgettable flop. Someone needs to sit them down and explain that if you want your movie to not suck is has to be about something. And if all you’re about is tearing down the good guys, then you’re about absolutely nothing.

No one expects those who have so willingly chose the darkside to understand that nihilism is not a value, but any junior college screenwriting student will tell you it’s no substitute for a theme.

What is even more puzzling to me is why Hollywood liberals would stand behind a pedophile. Maybe they’re afraid to upset the applecart lest other famous deviant directors and producers would not hire them for future projects.

Polanski’s latest film “The Ghost Writer” is having its premier at the Berlin Film Festival and writer Robert Harris would like us to believe that in reference to Polanski legal troubles that, “I never discussed it with him. It was never relevant.” In Mr. Harris’ world the fact that a man has been avoiding justice for thirty years isn’t relevant. In Mr. Harris world the art justifies the means. As long as Polanski keeps grinding out “artistic” films his personal life is of no consequence. Perhaps Mr. Harris is a member of the Leni Riefenstahl Fan Club as well as the Polanski Admiration Society.

The film’s stars Pierce Brosnan and Ewan McGregor have both been busy heaping praise on Polanski as a “maestro” and  for having an “… alchemy with the camera.”  Mr. Brosnan went on to say that in order to work with Mr. Polanski, “You have to know your onions.” I am not really sure what that means but it tells us two things about Mr. Brosnan, he’s not great with metaphors and he may be a little dense.

Brosnan is the poster boy for the term “limousine liberal.” He claims to have become an American citizen during what he terms “the atrocity of the Bush years” to help his family “endure the hypocrisy and stupidity of the man’s power.”  His power is stupid? His power is filled with hypocrisy? How do you figure that?

While Mr. McGregor and Brosnan are entitled to their opinions under what I consider the greatest of our freedoms, the right to be as stupid as you want to be, wouldn’t it be great if just once a Hollywood type would make a stand on principle. Just once it would be nice to hear a respected actor turn down a role in a Polanski film because they didn’t want to be associated with a child rapist. Come to think of it, it would be great if a politician or two would do something based on principle once in awhile too.

It’s too bad for John Wayne Gacy that he didn’t make films instead of doing clown paintings. He could be living in France with the help the Swiss Government and a few Hollywood friends.

Of course, our enemies do the best they can on the killing front as well, and at one point it was widely believed that the Soviets were engaged in training soldiers in psychic warfare. British journalist Jon Ronson stumbled across America’s response to those mental-murder programs and wrote about them extensively in his humorous nonfiction book “The Men Who Stare at Goats.” 

Now, with the help of screenwriter Peter Straughan, who has invented a streamlined story in which to connect the book’s hilarious and almost impossibly wild anecdotes, “Goats” has hit the nation’s movie screens. Fast-moving, funny, and supremely subversive entertainment of a kind that Hollywood rarely takes chances with anymore, it also arrives at a rich historical moment, as President Obama’s own decision on whether to surge or pull troops out of Afghanistan hangs in the imminent balance. 

In the film, Ewan McGregor heads off to the Mideast in the hopes of awakening the boring slumber of his life as reporter Bob Wilton in a small-city daily paper by crossing into Iraq and covering the war there. But all his efforts actually leave him stranded outside the country, until one night when he meets a man named Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), who claims he was part of an experiment program training for psychiatric warfare years before. 

The goal was to create a group of “warrior monks” called the New Earth Army, which would be able to read an enemy’s thoughts, walk through solid walls and  even kill goats by staring at them. The leader of this improbable mission was Bill Django, a former hippie turned military official who truly wanted to find a less deadly way to engage in battle and who is brought to vividly hilarious life by Jeff Bridges in a role akin to his lovably shaggy stoner in “The Big Lebowski.” 

Wilton and Cassady eventually discover that Django is being held, along with other former psychic soldiers, in a secret training camp run by renegade fellow psychic Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey). Wilton must ultimately figure out how to get out from between Django’s forces of oddball goodness and Hooper’s nefarious intentions. The result keeps the dialogue snappy and the twists coming fast, as Clooney’s producing partner Grant Heslov proves to be a steadily creative hand at the wheel of the film. 

The result is a film that enlightens as well as entertains, giving viewers a look at one of the strangest movements in American military history while making sure they have plenty to laugh about along the way. All the performances are expertly shaded at just the right level to avoid becoming over-the-top farce, and things move along at an exciting clip. 

Take a look at the track record of Clooney and Bridges, and it’ll be easy to surmise that the film takes a left-leaning slant on the events at hand. But enter with an open mind , people of all political persuasions will have a rowdy night at the movies while having plenty to talk about afterwards.

With so many tales of military heroism left to tell, Clooney and Company choose this…

“But “The Men Who Stare at Goats” is inspired by a “true” story,” they’ll say…

But why is it always these kinds of “true” stories that get picked?

UPDATE: A message to you “C’mon lighten uppers”:

Want to know when I’ll stop being a wet blanket about these “‘c’mon, lighten up, it’s just a” comedies? When for every 5 of these where I’m told “Relax it’s just a movie,” there’s ONE that treats these incredible men and women with the respect and reverence they deserve.

One of five, 20 measly percent, that’s all I’m asking for.

Then I’ll lighten up.

In the meantime, Hollywood can go to hell.

The Pope is dead and to elect the new Holy Father, the ancient ritual of the Conclave is set to begin when the four Cardinals most likely to be chosen, the preferiti, are kidnapped. An ancient brotherhood known as the Illuminati takes responsibility. They have no demands and only wish to teach the Church a lesson for a violent purging of their scientific “free thinkers” hundreds of years ago and to do that they have promised to violently kill one Cardinal an hour, each in a different location, with the grand finale being the complete destruction of Vatican City with an anti-matter bomb stolen in the film’s opening scene.

The only clues offered that might save the day are also meant to further the Illuminati’s pro-science stance. Each clue is based on the four altars of science: earth, air, wind, and fire and to help unravel these symbols, Harvard Professor Robert Langdon is called in. Joining him is Vittorio Vetra (Ayelet Zurer), the gorgeous Italian scientist who helped create the anti-matter and the best hope to disarm it.

Before the story even has a chance to get going, “Angels & Demons” seals its fate as an episodic snoozer. For the first forty minutes, using awkward asides and clumsy exposition, the Langdon character uses every opportunity (and creates a few of his own) to chastise the Catholic Church for its historical secrecy, hatred of modern art, book burning, anti-science posture and a violent past borne of intolerance and fear of truth. Now, I’m no historian, so all of this might carry some credibility (or not), but I also understand that another word for Leftist Kryptonite is “context” and that never once is the overwhelming good the church does given a hearing (other than a single sentence tossed off by an unsympathetic character). The result of this relentless demonizing is to completely undermine the story’s tension and suspense. In other words: Why should we care whether or not this horrible institution survives? This may be the first mainstream Hollywood thriller where our protagonist isn’t racing to save something worth saving.

Make no mistake, the filmmakers here are smart professionals who have been around a while and who fully understand that in order to tell a compelling story the audience must be emotionally invested in the outcome. Unfortunately, with their relentless stream of (at best) out-of-context Catholic bigotry, they’ve made the conscious choice to undermine our sympathizing with the very institution in danger, and this is done at the expense of telling what could have been a much stronger story. You might as well make a film with someone in a race against time to save Charles Manson.

To qualify “Angels & Demons” as a movie would be naïve in the extreme. What we have here is a big, clumsy cannonball in the culture war launched, not by filmmakers, but by ideological warriors who know how to use film.

But even if Howard and company had wanted to tell the best story they could, A&D would still have its problems. Having one Cardinal executed each hour in the grisliest of fashions with the promise of a big boom to top it all off may sound like the perfect way to structure a thriller, but Harvard Symbologists are a long way from Indiana Jones.

Hanks must have been bored stiff.  Langdon is all about the wash – rinse — repeat, but it goes like this: Puzzle to solve — furrow brow — light comes to eyes — point somewhere with authority – speak in academic tongues – dash off screen-left – jump in car – drive through ridiculously busy streets but still arrive barely in time in a way only Jack Bauer could relate to. But to the hero of “24’s” credit, with only an hour between murders, he’s never stopped to wash up, change clothes, enjoy a refreshing cup of coffee and chat up the help like Langdon does in a truly surreal moment.

As far as the most awkward moments, it’s hard to choose between the awkward stem cell debate between protesters the camera thrusts us into or the awkward shoe-horned shot at the energy industry near the film’s end.  There might have been PETA posters on the Vatican walls but Howard likes his cinematography dark, so it was hard to tell.

Too much of the suspense is as contrived as these political moments trying to disguise themselves as a theme. Langdon’s a College Professor, Vetra’s a scientist, and yet the Vatican police sure do leave them alone in the most dangerous of circumstances an awful lot. But even then you never feel Langdon’s in any real danger. I counted at least three times where the killer could’ve easily offed him and didn’t.

For a PG-13 film, A&D is loaded with a surprising amount of graphic violence and the performances vary. Armin Mueller-Stahl comes off best as a senior Cardinal whose motives remain in doubt until the very end, Ewan McGregor enjoys some good moments until a preposterous climax undoes all his good work, Hanks is Hanks, and the fetching Zurer just doesn’t have a whole lot to do.

Big movie. Big stars. Hard to stay away. I get that. But if you remember that “Angels & Demons” wasn’t conceived with the goal of telling the best story possible, you won’t be as disappointed.