The Ninth Gate
A review by: Blake Kunisch
Directed by: Roman Polanski & Roman+Polanski
Released: March 10, 2000 - US
Posted: 2000/03/11 | 8/10 starsFirst things first - why is it that here in America, we always get the short,
bastardized version of the film? The Ninth Gate was over 2 hours, 20 minutes long in Spain
(143 minutes) where the audience probably got to see more plot depth and character
development, yet in the US, it has been shortened to 127 minutes. And it's not just the
Ninth Gate. One of my favorite films from last year, The Legend of 1900,
was cut to a short 123 minutes here in the U.S. from 160 in Italy (a movie that could have
been longer and would have been better longer). It seems that the American movie-going
audiences have a shorter attention span and therefore, movie companies seem to think that
a movie needs to be close to 2 hours or we'll all get bored - that's not true. I hate to
do this, but Titanic was 3 hours long and made millions of dollars. Why can't the studios
release the movie the way it was meant to be shown - more often than not, the director's
cut of any movie is better than the studio's cut.
Now that I've finished my ranting, let's get into the actual review of the movie.
Definitely not what I was expecting, I was pleasantly surprised by the film. Directed by
Roman Polanski, starring Johnny Depp as Corso, a book investigator/buyer/seller/etc., The
Ninth Gate delves into the strange world of witchcraft, devil worship, and the occult. The
Ninth Gate revolves around an interesting plot about a very rare book (only 3 copies)
containing the nine gates in a series of engravings, split between the 3 copies.
Wealthy devil-worshipper/collector of books on the occult, Boris Balkan (Frank
Langella), has hired Corso to investigate the 3 books and find the one true book (he
believes 2 are forgeries). This starts Corso's long journeys to Spain, Portugal, and
France all the while trying to evade other collectors of this very rare book. While the
movie is nothing that it appears to be in the trailers and TV commercials, it is a good
movie nonetheless. I mentioned above that this movie has lost 16 minutes in it's
transition from Spain to the U.S. which may or may not have been a good thing. Throughout
the movie the plot drags on very slowly and it gets almost tedious to watch the movie.
With 16 more minutes of slowly paced happenings, it would have been unbearable, but in
these 16 minutes, we could have had more character development or more insight into the
plot and the final (questionable) ending. Speaking of which, after the movie was over, the
whole crowd let out a collective gasp as if they were expecting more. I, however, knew the
movie was ending and saw it coming and couldn't have asked for more. Maybe these extra 16
minutes were necessary to the movie, as the general public might leave the movie feeling
unfulfilled.
All in all, the movie tries for the horror genre, but ends up more a mystery, as Corso
tries to uncover the real origins of this book and the real ramifications of the combining
of the nine gates. While many other critics have panned this movie, I found it interesting
and very good. Well worth the price of matinee.
Genres: Thriller, Horror, Mystery
Rated: R
Runtime: 127 minutes
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