Ninth Gate, The (1999)

reviewed by
Shay Casey


The Ninth Gate
**1/2 out of ****

Year: 2000. Starring Johnny Depp, Frank Langella, Lena Olin, Emmanuelle Seigner, Barbara Jefford, Jack Taylor, Jose Lopez Rodero, James Russo. Screenplay by John Brownjohn, Roman Polanski, and Enrique Urbizu. Directed by Roman Polanski. Rated R.

When Arnold Schwarzenegger fights the Devil, you know the prince of darkness is a popular subject. But 1999's "End of Days" was a critical and commercial flop that trailers for Roman Polanski's latest effort "The Ninth Gate" made their film look dangerously similar to. Those who endured Arnold's misfire may therefore be pleased to find out that "The Ninth Gate" is a refreshingly slow-paced and thoughtful detective story involving a protagonist who collects books for a living, and veteran director Polanski has spiced up the proceedings enough to make his film consistently engrossing -- for about three-fourths of its running time. A shame that Polanski didn't quite know how to end his movie; "The Ninth Gate" slowly but surely pulls us in, making us believe that it's building towards a grand ending, one that never comes. It's a disappointing conclusion to an otherwise good film.

Johnny Depp stars as Dean Corso, a book collector hired by wealthy professor Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) to find two other copies of a book reputed to have been written by the devil himself. The book, "The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows," will supposedly call up Satan when used properly, but Balkan worries that the copy he has recently acquired may be a fake. He dispatches Corso to examine the other two books and discover which, if any, is an authentic version. Corso's quest leads him to Europe, where the other two copies are held in private collections. But in his search, Corso discovers he may be getting more than he bargained for. The vampish widow of the recently deceased former owner of Balkan's copy (Lena Olin) wants the book back, despite Corso's insistence that the book is not his to give up. He notices a strange blonde woman (Emmanuelle Seigner) following him wherever he goes, dead bodies keep turning up in his wake, and eventually Corso's own life is threatened. Cars try to run him over. Thugs encounter him in dark alleys. And it seems the closer Dean Corso gets to the secret of the ninth gate, the more dangerous his search becomes.

Polanski has been known in the past for his updating of the film noir genre, especially in his most well-known (and probably best) film "Chinatown." In "The Ninth Gate," he returns to the genre with which he has been most successful. The film is partially a homage to, and partially a parody of, the classic Hollywood detective story. We see it in the cast: Depp is a strangely detached main character, definitely not the classic Humphrey Bogart model detective. He's a "book detective," and he looks the part, wearing glasses and a goatee, looking as if a stiff wind might knock him over. The other characters are near-cartoonish parodies of traditional noir characters. Frank Langella, Lena Olin, and Emmanuelle Seigner ham it up (as they were no doubt told to do) as, respectively, the shady businessman and female vamps. Other amusing characters turn up in smaller roles, most notably a pair of Italian book dealer brothers, both played by the same actor, Jose Lopez Rodero, and one of the surprising things about "The Ninth Gate," despite its supposedly weighty subject matter, is how darkly funny it often is. Some may see this as a failure on Polanski's part, but not if one takes it as an intended joke on the director's part. Polanski obviously doesn't see Satanism as seriously as many other directors would, and the intentional stabs at humor work a whole lot better than the unintentional ones in the ridiculously serious "End of Days."

In many ways, it's fun to see Polanski fooling around with genre cliches: the femme fatales, the trail of dead bodies, the car chases, and the fistfights in back alleys. It could be said that "The Ninth Gate" is little more than conventional film noir with a supernatural element, but that's a bit of an understatement. There aren't many new noir ideas here, but then again, there aren't many new noir ideas to be had. What's important is that in "The Ninth Gate," Polanski does classic film noir well. Until the final reel, his storytelling is near-perfect. The mystery of the ninth gate is handled well, with layers of truth gradually revealed until we figure out what's going on. Polanski's handling of the camera is also as adept as ever. It's wonderful to see a director who is just as willing to let pictures tell the story as dialogue; very often the camera reveals more in one continuous shot than could be told in ten minutes of exposition. For about 100 minutes, "The Ninth Gate" manages to be an engrossing, amusing thriller.

I would certainly love to keep on talking about why I enjoyed the first three-fourths of this film, but eventually, we have to get to that final reel, don't we? What a shame. All I can say for the conclusion of "The Ninth Gate" is "Huh?" I was engrossed in the film's plot most of the way, and for devoting my attention to a picture for that long, one might expect a decent payoff. Too bad this film doesn't have one, and it's not just one of those "Blair Witch Project" we-didn't-get-to-see-the-witch endings. That film's directors had the good sense to at least give us something to think about, clues as to what had happened, even if they didn't spell it out for us. "The Ninth Gate" gives us nothing, and it doesn't help that the film had clearly taken a turn for the worse in its final half hour: There are too many endings, too many loose ends, and far too much silliness leading up to the abrupt fade-out, which is possibly the most uninvolving way Polanski could have ended his film. It's as if he ran out of film before shooting the final scene. Questions linger, those that one would expect to have been at least touched upon before film's end. Who was the mysterious girl? Why does Corso take such a sudden interest in the occult after it had previously been only the money that he wanted? And most importantly, does the devil get called up or not?

You won't find answers to any of these questions in "The Ninth Gate." Though repeat viewings may bring to light more aspects of the ninth gate legend, there doesn't seem to be much revealed about what actually happens when (and if) Satan is called up, and that is a major disappointment. You aren't left with a whole lot to chew on after seeing "The Ninth Gate." The ending, perhaps intended to appear "clever" and ambiguous, mostly comes off as lazy, and as much as I would like to proclaim Polanski's return to the director's chair a triumphant one, his film is far too imperfect for me to do that. Polanski came very close to creating a great film here. It's just too bad he forgot to end it.

-reviewed by Shay Casey

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