The Ghost Writer

Though the movie is set in Massachusetts, when the ticket agent at the ferry asks The Ghost for his choice of ticket type, she uses the British words "single" and "return" instead of the United States expressions "one-way" and "round-trip".

The NHL game being broadcast at the bar is on Rogers Sportsnet which is a Canadian station.

This channel isn't offered in New England, unless watched on the NHL Center Ice package.

After the Ghost Writer reads a 212-555 phone#, he presumably dials that 555-prefix number, but, the tones are not the same as a 555-number would be.

A yellow and black striped buoy viewed from the ferry is a European type not found in US waters.

When the Ghost arrives in Edgartown in the borrowed BMW and pulls up in a parking lot, his vehicle is shown blocking another car parked at right angles to his.

In the next medium shot, his vehicle is shown a good 6 feet or more further back and not blocking the other vehicle.

In the next medium shot, when the Ghost turns his vehicle around to follow the GPS instructions, he starts from the original position blocking the other vehicle.

Several curse words are dubbed over with British words, though the actors are clearly saying something else (notably Lang saying "sod" dubbed in place of the "f-word").

(This only occurs in the U.

PG-13 version of the film.

Versions in Canada and the UK have no overdubbing and so the said dialog matches the mouth movements.

) In the middle of the movie the Ghost underlines all instances of "Ruth" in the manuscript.

Later in the movie he underlines various words including "Ruth" which now has no underlining.

When the ghost writer and his agent (Rick) meet in the first scene, in a bar/restaurant, the agent has the glass almost empty of water, but in the next image (filming angle changed) his glass is 3/4 full with water.

The black car chasing The Ghost through the woods changes models.

Early in the chase, the car is a Chrysler LHS, circa 2002.

When it boards the ferry, it is a Chrysler 300, circa 2009.

(It's possible that two sets of bad guys are following the Ghost, but that possibility is not highlighted.

) When The Ghost is in his hotel room, the telephone rings and it is a UK brrring-brrring (double) ring instead of a long single ring.

In the first meeting with Adam Lang and The Ghost, Lang's tomato juice level falls and rises The first car off the ferry in the beginning of the movie has a white New York State Statue of Liberty license plate.

The "Liberty" license plate was retired in 2001, before the War on Terror.

A round-trip ferry ticket for a car to Martha's Vineyard is $135, well over the $40 paid by the ghost.

There are no leaves on trees or green grass in Massachusetts or on Cape Cod at the January when the movie takes place.

When the Ghost stands outside Paul Emmett's house and looks in the mailbox, the letters have all been sent to Belmont, Massachusetts, with a zip code beginning with "023".

But Belmont's zip code is 02478.

When we first see the abandoned BMW on the ferry viewed from the the bow of the ship its front right wheel is parked straight, hard against the yellow lane divider.

When we see it alone from above/behind the vehicle is more skewed and across the left-hand line.

The Ghost uses a PC when he interviews Lang, but later when he uses the Internet, the search buttons and and the mouse cursor have a "Mac-like" appearance.

While the Windows version of Safari has the same buttons and the cursors on a PC can be changed, it is highly unlikely.

Although the story is set to take place in the United States, the blue BMW 5 Series (most likely a 525d) driven by Paul Emmitt's wife is a diesel.

Currently BMW does not sell any diesel powered 5 Series cars in the United States.

As the shooter falls from the roof, he clearly rotates onto his back.

But in the subsequent closeup he is lying on his stomach.

When the Ghost is driving out of Paul Emmett's home we can see the rear wiper which is stopped on the upper position, but when the same wiper is seen in the view from inside the car it's stopped on its proper position.

When Lang is being shown on live TV addressing the media, the 'CNN' strapline at the bottom of the screen refers to him as 'Former BRISTISH Prime Minister".

The investigation of the fictional prime minister by the ICC would be precluded by a cooperating British government (which implies, inter alia, the conduct of a British investigation).

Article 17 of the Rome Statute states that cases are admissible only when a state's own court system is genuinely unable or unwilling to investigate or prosecute an alleged crime.

When Adam Lang emerges from the limousine to address the reporters, Amelia Bly crosses behind him and stands to the left.

In the next shot, which shows the remainder of the press conference on television, Amelia is standing to the right of Adam.

However the news camera's POV is different from that of the initial shot of the characters taking up position and Bly's positioning is not inconsistent.

When Ms.

Bly and The Ghost are entering the book "launch party" at the end of the film, Ms.

Bly's hairstyle changes from one shot to the next; in the shots where she's wearing her jacket, her hair has small curls on both sides; once her jacket is off, her hair is almost completely straight.

When the Ghost gets disconnected on his cell phone, we hear a fast busy signal.

When a cell phone is disconnected it goes dead.

There is never a dial tone or a fast busy on disconnect.

An intellectual man like Paul Emmett with a Cambridge doctorate degree should know better than to use the object form of "who" in a copular sentence - "And he is whom?" The ex-Prime Minister mentions an article in the "London Times".

While it's true that the London newspaper is officially named "The Times", he was in the US, where "The New York Times" is typically referred to as simply "The Times".

Lange stated that the article was in the London Times, to make it clear which newspaper he meant.

When the Ghost visits the beach, minutes after a heavy rainstorm, we can see him kicking up dry sand with each step.

When the Ghost first enters the compound Security searches for bombs under his taxi with a mirror.

A real guard would have known to check the wheel arch by passing the mirror over the wheel.

When the Ghost gets dressed after the night with Ruth he puts on a solid ivory-colored shirt.

He then leaves the house in the host's BMW.

When he is seen checking the manuscript just outside Emmet's house, he is wearing a patterned (checked) shirt.

When CNN is showing how the various markets did, it list the Dow down slightly less than 50, then the S&P also down slightly less than 50.

If the S&P was down 50, the Dow would likely have been down between 400 and 500.

Towards the beginning there is a shot of the front end of a Ford truck waiting to depart the ferry, much later in the movie the same shot is used but it is reversed, with the text therefor reversed.

On the ticker for CNN during the news report, British is spelled "Bristish" In the final shot of the movie, the first car to pull up in front of the (off-screen) accident on a London street has a small square front number-plate.

While there are such number plates in use in the UK - principally on privately-imported cars from Japan - this is very unusual.

UK number-plates are rectangular.

This is not necessarily an error.

UK plates can be square at the front as well as rectangular and not restricted to Japanese imports.

Furthermore, the plate has a Q prefix which is often assigned to kit cars and always to vehicles where the age or origin cannot be determined.

When the Ghost takes the BMW out for the first time and stops on his way to the hotel, there is a parked car to the side of him, and he is blocking the car's exit.

The film then cuts to the car interior.

A moment later when it cuts back to an exterior shot, the parked car has gone.

Ruth's accent changes randomly between very English posh and slightly Estuary (not posh).

This could of course be a deliberate goof to demonstrate how she has had to 'improve' her accent as she has ascended Lang's ladder and finds it difficult, as English people do, to keep up the pretence, especially at times of emotional stress.