The Ninth Gate: Thriller.  Starring Johnny Depp, Frank Langella, Lena Olin, Emmanuelle Seigner and Barbara Jefford.  Based on the novel “El Club Dumas” by Arturo Perez Reverte.  Directed by Roman Polanski.

Abandoned.  Chagrined.  Empty.  These are some of the emotions The Ninth Gate will leave you feeling.  Roman Polanski's newest film is a tease, and a disappointing one too.  It opens with such promise; you perk up in anticipation just knowing you are about to watch a Polanski creation.  The first shot demonstrates the director's exquisite skills as the camera swoops to create an eerie backdrop.  You are lured into the film, but little do you realize that you, in fact, are entering into the ninth gate of hell yourself. 

Despite being marketed as a horror flick containing gore and sex, The Ninth Gate is actually a mild thriller.  Johnny Depp plays a mercenary rare book dealer named Dean Corso who is hired by Boris Balkan (Frank Langella), a rich and ominous collector obsessed with the devil, to hunt down the two remaining copies of a 17th century satanic text.  The book, The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of the Shadows, is supposed to be able to conjure up the devil himself.  Balkan is having some technical difficulties getting to Lucifer and, thus, wants Corso to examine the other copies to make sure his own version is the real deal. 

As Corso embarks on his new stint as a detective, he soon realizes the texts are much sought after treasures.  He begins to be followed by several people and his life is threatened.  Corso wants to quit the assignment, but he gets pressured by the persistent Balkan to persevere. So he continues his search and travels to Europe to seek out the copies. When there he discovers that all three copies of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of the Shadows are genuine and their illustrations form a riddle.  Corso becomes enthralled by the puzzle and strives to solve it. He does the job then not for the money, but to satisfy his fascination with the texts' power.  Does solving the riddle open up a gateway to the hell?  Is that gateway the ninth gate?  Will Corso have ultimate power if he cracks the mystery? Well, you never find out what the ninth gate actually is or what it does. Moreover, when someone finally does open the gate, you have no idea what happens to them.  Your questions are stunted and you are left with a purgatory-like feeling at the bottom of your stomach.

Indeed, there are a lot of unanswered questions in The Ninth Gate.  Corso has a series of mysterious, reoccurring encounters that are never sufficiently explained.  For example, The Girl (Emmanuelle Seigner) who acts as his seductive, evil fairy godmother.  Who is she and why is she protecting Corso?  Even when she begins to float, you still don't get any explanation. Seigner, Polanski's wife, was fantastic in Bitter Moon; she should have had more of a role in this film.  Instead all she does is beat people up and mesmerize Corso with her long, silent stares.  In fact, there are several characters that seem pretty intriguing. Polanski should have focussed more on them rather than on the so-called ninth gate.

The Ninth Gate moves fairly well as a tepid thriller (except for the "end"), but horribly as anything else.  Throughout the film you are waiting for something scary to happen, and it never does.  It just slowly builds and builds, and then leaves you with nothing.  This film has NO ending. None.  Did Polanski run out of funding? Did he decide to suddenly wrap things up and go on a vacation with his wife?  You almost feel violated that he took you on an hour and a half trip only to leave you confused and alone.  As a supposed horror follow-up to Rosemary’s Baby, The Ninth Gate comes up very, very short.