Very much in the veins of a Hitchcock story, Roman Polanski’s Ninth Gate takes a mildly entertaining idea and goes off the deep end with it.

Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) is antique book specialist who’s willing to rip off the next guy for a buck. He’s hired by the greedier Boris (Frank Langella), who’s trying to authenticate a valuable book he has about Satan. As Depp runs around Europe investigating, he starts to uncover dark secrets about the book and eventually becomes engaged in solving the mystery for his own sake.

The story is mildly engaging for its mystery and Polanski does a good job at setting a tone that’s continually eerie. It’s never really scary, but always off-setting enough to keep you uncomfortable. Depp’s low key performance and a dark visual palate creates a film that’s oddly similar to Depp’s later Secret Window.

The mystery eventually unravels, but the truth is, the further we get into the film, the less anything makes sense. I think there’s supossed to be some connection with his worship of money and the decision he makes in the end, but it’s never clearly made. The lack of any cohesiveness in the story leads one to conclude there’s nothing deeper here than a gothic B-movie.

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