Review: "The Ninth Gate" (1999)

Big movie directors and huge movie stars always have a few films on their resumes that fans and audiences generally overlook. Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate starring Johnny Depp probably qualifies. 

Yet it's an interesting movie and falls firmly into the category of New Yorkers who travel abroad and get into trouble.

Depp stars as Dean Corso, a ruthless and ethically dubious NYC rare book dealer, who is hired by a rich and strange man named Boris Balkan to authenticate one of his books -- supposedly written by Satan himself. Call The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, it's suppose to contain information about how to open "the Ninth Gate" and summon up the Devil himself. There are only three known copies of the book in existence, and Balkan tasks Corso to go to Portugal and France to examine the other two copies and verify his book's authenticity. Very early on, it becomes excruciatingly clear that this book is bad news -- it's previous owner killed himself the day after selling it to Balkan, and now his widow is harassing Corso, as he travels with it to Europe, to get it back. Corso meets with the other two copies' owners, only to find out later that they've been killed. Along the way he is trailed, and then joins forces, with a gorgeous woman who both helps and mystifies him. As Corso delves furthers into the legend of the Nine Gates, more and more craziness ensues.

Is the book genuine? Will Corso survive to find out? And can it or any copy of it open up ... the Ninth Gate!

If you like smart thrillers, this is your movie. If you like the occult and movies about dark creepy people then this is really your movie. And if you're a big Johnny Depp, it really really is your movie. For my money, the best performance is by Frank Langella as the creepy Balkan who is a sinister prescence in the film even when he's not on screen.

The Ninth Gate is very reminiscent of Polanski's other thrillers, the classic Chinatown and his later The Ghostwriter -- a cynical professional gets hired to figure something out and stumbles upon a scary mystery that threatens his life. Obviously recommending a movie with the problematic Polanski and Deep is perhaps a tad gauche these days but, as a work of cinematic art, it's worth checking out.