Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Overlooked Movies -- The Ninth Gate

This is another repeat, written back in 2007 before this meme began.  The movie was mentioned elsewhere lately, and I was reminded of this post, so I figured it would fit in nicely here.  I still haven't read Club Dumas, the book on which the movie is based.

George Kelley recommended this movie to me. It slipped by me completely on its original release, and I didn't even know that it had to do with rare books and book collectors. So I was glad to catch up with it on DVD. 

Johnny Depp, doing his usual excellent job, plays a book dealer with questionable ethics. (I refuse to make any jokes here.) He's hired by Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) to compare his copy of a very rare book to the only two remaining copies. The book has an interesting history, and it begins to seem that the certain illustrations might have been done by Lucifer, whose work appears on different pages in each copy. Put all his engravings together, and what do you get? That's for Langella to know and for Depp to find out. 

In some ways this is an effective horror movie, a lot more interesting to me than any number of variations on the old "how many buckets of fake blood can we use" pictures around these days. The book collecting aspects are especially appealing, and Depp's detective work is often engrossing. He's not an appealing character even at the beginning, and he becomes a much worse person as the plot thickens. Along the way he's assisted by a woman who may (or may not) be Lucifer in earthly form. (And not a bad form at all, I must say.) 

So what's not to like? Well, the parts that are good in themselves don't add up to an entirely successful whole. The occult sex club wasn't creepy or effective, and the ending didn't satisfy me, though it might have impressed me more if I'd been sure what it meant. Overall, the movie's certainly worth a look, especially if you like books.

9 comments:

pattinase (abbott) said...

Pretty sure I saw this but can't be positive. My lists are packed.

George said...

I liked THE NINTH GATE except for the ending. Johnny Depp is actually convincing as a book hunter.

Anonymous said...

Sadly, directed by a serial child molester.

ShellyS said...

I never saw the movie, but I did read the book. The book was quite good and a bit of a mind game. The author, Arturo Perez-Riverte, really played with reader expectations. My understanding is the movie took out part of the story.

Unknown said...

The book might have clarified some of the things that bothered me in the movie.

ShellyS said...

I think what the movie did was try to tell a straight forward story, which the book really isn't, and make it more of a horror or suspense story, which it really isn't, either. The book is a mind game and definitely worth reading. I did read a lot of reviews of the movie when it came out because I did want to see it, but the reviews were mixed at best and made it sound like the movie missed the point of the book, which made the movie a different story in a way, so I didn't bother seeing it.

Jeff Meyerson said...

We didn't like it at all, quit halfway through.

Jeff

Unknown said...

I love THE CLUB DUMAS, the book by Arturo Perez-Reverte on which "The Ninth Gate" is based, but did not enjoy the film at all. The film ignored the best parts of the book which results in a very different story being told. Without the parallels to The Three Musketeers, the structure of the film seems off to me as well. Perhaps if you watched it with no knowledge of the book, it might be tolerable, but ...

Gerard said...

I liked the flick. The occult sex club may not have fit in but it certainly added more nudity.