The Ninth Gate (1999, United States)

mysterious eventsmystery moviesreligious mysteries

Running time: 130 minutes

Language: English

The Ninth Gate 1999 American mystery film review

Dean Corso is a New York rare book dealer who won’t pass any opportunity for a good deal, even if it means doing something unethical. A call from wealthy book collector Boris Balkan sets him on the trail of a very rare 17th-century book, The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows by Aristide Torchia. Balkan has recently bought one of the three existing copies, believing that this is the only real copy, while both others being forgeries. He hires Corso to confirm his suspicions, even though he knows that gaining access to the other two copies won’t be easy. His own copy previously belonged to Andrew Telfer, who committed suicide soon after selling the book, and his widow is now trying to seduce Corso. She was hoping to get the book back, which was bought for her, but when this doesn’t work, she becomes violent. Corso’s friend, who was keeping the Balkan’s book for him, is murdered, and his body posed similar to one of the illustration in The Nine Gates. Corso quickly leaves the country and goes to Portugal, to visit owners of other copy, where he learns that the stake might be much higher than simply rare and valuable books.

After the success of The Da Vinci Code, many authors became "inspired" and wrote similar mystery books which connected the historical facts, the legends and the art - some of them came close to the level of The Da Vinci Code, some of them were rather laughable, but none of them actually reached the same popularity as the Dan Brown’s Book. The Ninth Gate was based on The Club Dumas book by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, directed by Roman Polanski and with Johnny Depp and Frank Langella in the cast the project seemed to be a guaranteed success. Unfortunately, even though the atmosphere was good, the cast was great, the plot was involving, even the devil worshipping bit was interesting, the film was too long and the ending was... just bizarre. Shame, because all the ingredients were there.

Creators of The Ninth Gate

	Roman Polanski	director
	Roman Polanski	screenplay
	Enrique Urbizu	screenplay
	John Brownjohn	screenplay
	Arturo Perez-Reverte	screenplay

Cast of The Ninth Gate

	Johnny Depp	as Dean Corso
	Frank Langella	as Boris Balkan
	Lena Olin	as Liana Telfer
	Emmanuelle Seigner	as The Girl
	Barbara Jefford	as Baroness Kessler

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