10 More Times The Movie Killer Was Hiding In Plain Sight

When Ewan McGregor's nameless ghost-writer is hired by ex-British PM Adam Lang to complete his memoirs, he begins to suspect that Lang has been a willing CIA stooge since the 1970s. With the original ghost writer, McAra, found dead in a highly suspicious suicide, McGregor uncovers a conspiracy that will lead to his own murder, not at the hands of Lang, but his wife Ruth, the real CIA agent, recruited to manipulate Lang from day one.

If you didn't twig until the end of the movie, you definitely weren't alone but it's Ruth herself who drops the big giveaways.

While Lang is dealing with a diplomatic nightmare, the writer is left alone with Ruth, so over dinner, he presses her for answers: "Does he always ask for your advice?" She practically confesses right there: "Yes, and always takes it, until lately." She's a spy! Ruth also lets slip that she did a year of post-graduate political research, clue number two and clearly where she met Dr. Emmett, her CIA tutor and handler.

When the writer has an illicit meeting with the British Foreign Secretary, he learns that McAra tried to expose the conspiracy: "It's all there, in the beginning... " The writer assumes this means the beginning of Lang's career, yet 'beginnings' is meant literally, referring instead to the first word of each chapter in McAra's original draft: "Lang's. Wife. Ruth. Was. Recruited. As. A. CIA. Agent. By. Professor. Paul. Emmett."

Mystery solved but too late for McGregor - he's run over moments after he learns the truth.