The Ninth Gate

THE NINTH GATE (1999) - June 12, 2011
An almost absurdly tedious movie about a rare book dealer who is hired by a sinister occult obsessive to try to authenticate a very rare book, supposedly co-written by the devil.  This involves Johnny Depp carefully scrutinizing the illustrations in multiple versions of the same book to see how they compare, which is just as exciting as it sounds.  The film actually starts out decently enough.  There's a fairly effective scene establishing Johnny Depp's character in which he swindles the owners of a large collection of books out of an exceptionally valuable copy of Don Quixote.  This scene sets him up as a fairly interesting character; yet as soon as he starts his investigation, anything interesting about his character dissolves completely.  He becomes a completely bland cipher with no discernable personality.  The rest of the movie pretty much consists of Johnny Depp traveling around and asking people about the book, and then cross-checking illustrations.  Director Roman Polanski seemingly attempted to inject the whole thing with an ominous vibe, something which fails pretty much completely.  There's pretty much no suspense or tension here; only tedium.  It all builds up to a conclusion that is as baffling as it is anticlimactic.  Boo-urns.  *