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The Ninth Gate - Roman Polanski
The Ninth Gate is a thriller about a book specialist, Dean Corso,
who is called upon to authenticate a rare book of which only three
copies are known to exist. The book collector Boris Balkan has
one of the copies of 'The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows' a 17th
century book said to have been co-authored by an Italian man and
Lucifer himself. The book is supposed to hold great power for
the person who owns it. However supposedly only one of the books
it authentic and Balkan wants Corso to travel to Europe to see the other
two copies and determine which is the real one. If Balkan's copy
is not the real one then Corso is to try everything possible to obtain
the real book. This will not be an easy job as Balkan is not the
only one interested in having the real book.
The Ninth Gate is a slow moving but otherwise excellent thriller
but also in its way a modern adventure story. There's sex and
violence, mystery and intrigue, just a lack of spectacular stunts or
booby-trap-laden locations. The locations on this film start off
pretty run of the mill but as the story goes forward they become better
and more breath taking. They are not the best that have ever been
used but they were worth the special mention. Johnny Depp as
Dean Corso gives an excellent performance stepping into the role fully
and being completely distinct from any of his other works. He is
totally believable as the slightly sleazy and ultimately corrupt "book
detective". The rest of the cast does well although everyone else
has practically very little screen time in comparison. This is a
definitely Roman Polanski film, a slow steady plot that builds and
builds, and twists and turns and weaves. There is a lot of style
in this film. Despite the backdrop of the search for ultimate
power left in the real book as given to it by Lucifer there are no
scares or monsters or anything of the sort except for a few interesting
things which are best left to be discovered through watching The Ninth
Gate.
(
Thank you for reading my review.
Bob Male)
All ideas, opinions, and information are from the reviewer
and are not representative of any company or group involved with the creators
and/or staff of the materials being reviewed.