Johnny Depp is Dean Corso, a rare book collector and broker based in New York City. He is contracted by Boris Balkan (Frank Langella), an eccentric professor, to find and authenticate two books written by Lucifer. One is in Portugal and the other in France; Corso is to find out which of them is authentic and which is not. Balkan has the world's most complete library on the devil, and these two books belong with a volume he already owns. As he makes his journey, Corso finds some discrepancies in the books' graphics, which start to play out as a puzzle. Along the way, he has a guardian angel of sorts, a mysterious girl, Emmanuelle Seigner, who is Director Roman Polanski's real life wife.
Depp starts out great with his brash style of ripping book collectors off in his search and being the ladies man. When he sees one of the three books about the devil in the collection of Frank Langella and gets a huge offer to find the other two books, Corso visits Liana Telfer (Lena Olin), who is the wife of a deceased book collector. She is surprisingly bright and cheery for the widow of a man who committed suicide a week ago, so it's no surprise something is going on beneath the surface. And just in case you sometimes have difficulty with plots in these "out there" movies, seeing the number 666, the traditional sign of the devil, on her rear end will give you a hint. She wants her husband's book returned and comes to visit Corso to charm him into it. But he is smart and has left it with a friend who owns a bookstore. When he goes to get the book, he sees a familiar symbol and it looks like the movie is taking a turn onto a more interesting path.
Corso goes to a shop in Portugal and learns where the second book is located. He visits the person and discovers some interesting differences between that book and the one from New York, which he has with him.
In Paris he finds the most efficient front office secretary in the world, who tells him he has 13 minutes to visit with the owner of a third book. It takes awhile to bring her around to allow Corso to look at her book for comparisons. We are getting closer to the truth about evil.
Emmanuelle phases in and out of the story when needed, establishing that at some point she will be a key link to Corso's future. If you like movies about evil or the devil, you will probably enjoy this film, if only to discuss it with others. Pay close attention to the graphics in the book and characters in the movie and the entire film will have a greater meaning to you.
If there is any real merit to this film it's that we see evil as being incidental rather than pro active. There are some dreadfully silly scenes here; as when Depp is in an espresso shop, and a chase scene between a Rolls Royce and a Land Rover, or Depp falling through a floor.
There is a good look to the film, and fundamentally a solid story of interest. But silly, slow and words like "come on, puleeze," describe this movie about the devil. Depp and Seigner run around Europe as dimwits of sorts and finally, toward the end of the movie, they solve the puzzle. But who cares? You learn little about evil from this movie¾ except that some people have a better concept of it than others.
Not as good as End of Days, which did a better job of touching on evil, however, we must not forget this is from the director that brought us "Rosemary's Baby," so he has traveled this path before.
DVD