K-SCORE: 38
Writer/Director: Roman Polanski
Starring: Johnny Depp, Lena Olin, Frank Langella
I guess I just don’t find the devil interesting enough. The Ninth Gate features predictable minor twists in a plot, following a rare book expert using none of his specialized rare book skills to track down three copies of the same book in which only the pictures and not the words matter and with which he can open the ninth gate to hell, which all of the characters agree is really the best thing to do, even when they don’t agree on anything else. Even if you aren’t bothered by the lack of rare book mystique in this story about a rare book trader, or bothered by the fact that the content of the books is irrelevant, or bothered by the fact that even the protagonist seems to really want to go to hell, The Ninth Gate is odd in that it assumes you and the whole world of its characters are in agreement that the devil is real, hell is tangible somewhere, and the only thing in question is how to get there. Behind this macabre, slow-paced presentation is a truly weird story, so much so it’s almost worth examining even though it’s of dubious value in and of itself.
Don't you love that movies seem to think that devils always look like this?
THE SCOTT 200
The Ninth Gate is a wonderful little documentary about the world of rare book collecting. It has numerous insights about how small manuscript discrepancies can tell you a lot about an author. Such as, sometimes he’s Lucifer. I give Ninth Gate 160 out 200 DevHeads. I give Kyle’s review 3 out of 5.