The Ninth Gate

Starring: Johnny Depp, Frank Langella, Lena Olin, Emmanuelle Seigner, Barbara Jefford
Directed by: Roman Polanski
Rating: R
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
1999

Times Seen:
Tim: 2

Summary: A rare book dealer (Johnny Depp) takes a job to track down extremely rare books that are rumored to be able to summon the Devil himself.

Review:

Tim: The Ninth Gate is a movie that I really should have liked. It's a supernatural horror film about summoning the devil. It stars Johnny Depp, and is directed by Roman Polanski (who I hate, but the guy is a good director). There are things to like here, but unfortunately, it doesn't work nearly as well as it should have. This film ultimately disappoints.

Polanski creates a pretty effective story here. We have our protagonist, a man we find out early on is only in the business to make money. His loyalty can be bought. He embarks on this dangerous quest to discover a secret hidden in three copies of a book believed to be able to summon the devil. This is a terrific premise, and one that is immediately interesting. Polanski directs this aspect of the film masterfully. The mystery surrounding the different books, and what they are leading to, is fascinating. I loved that aspect of the film. Everyone loves a good mystery, and Polanski creates a strong one here.

Unfortunately, there's just too many elements that detract from the story. We have this mysterious woman who is protecting Depp's character. This was a criticism I had- she's not fully explained until far too late in the film, so we're left wondering. We see she can float or fly, but is frustratingly enigmatic. I found myself distracted by her presence. Some of this comes from the boring, wooden performance of Emmanuelle Seigner, some of it is due to the script not utilizing this character to her fullest. It just felt odd to me that Depps's character wouldn't question her presence more.

While most of the film contains an interesting mystery, Polanski's film just plods along. I hate calling films "slow", especially when I know Polanski loves utilizing the slow boiler method in his films. I didn't need to be wowed every second, but the movie needed to be tightened up a bit. It's ridiculous that this film lasted 133 minutes. Polanski should have gotten this closer to 2 hours. There's a few too many scenes that take unnecessarily long to conclude and don't always propel the story forward.

I found the end of the film to be wholly unsatisfying. Frank Langella's character is so interesting, mysterious, and formidable, but the film completely squanders his conclusion. It was just such a stupid, laughably bad scene. It was anticlimactic and disappointing. Plus, I know Polanski loves to be controversial and different, but the end of the film did not need to be so enigmatic. I'm not suggesting we needed everything wrapped up with a bow, but it felt a little unnecessary. The film really takes a turn for the worse during the cloaked devil-worshipper scene (really, has anyone ever pulled off a scene like this and made it memorable and cool?). From that point to the end of the film, the movie became more and more disappointing. It was hard to stay engaged because the length of the movie, and the fact that it ends very weakly.

Now, I really did like Johnny Depp in the lead role. He was an odd character, but a fascinating one. He was intelligent, but somewhat lacking in morals. And yet, he was also compassionate in a way. Depp does a great job of combining all these different characteristics into one interesting character. I will say that Depp played the character far too reserved for my taste. He needed to show more emotion. That was a hugely limiting factor of his performance. Still, he was clearly the best actor in the film (with Frank Langella a close second).

I normally like these kinds of movies, but The Ninth Gate didn't do enough right. I would say this was a decent effort- it showed a few promising signs, but ultimately could not deliver. I don't feel overly negative toward this film, but I have seen it twice now, and I really have no desire to ever watch it again. It's simply not good enough.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



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