It’s all about frenemies, popes and accountants on Amazon Prime Video this week. Some of the streamer’s most popular movies right now include Another Simple Favor with Anna Kendrick, Conclave with Ralph Fiennes and The Accountant with Ben Affleck.
None of those films are on this underrated movie list, though, because they are all perfectly rated and widely watched.
Instead, Watch With Us has selected a chilling home invasion thriller, an erotic drama starring Angelina Jolie and a Johnny Depp horror film that will dissuade you from ever going into a used bookstore ever again. These films are flawed, but they are all just good enough to merit a watch in May.
‘The Ninth Gate’ (1999)
If you always suspected that antique book collectors are secretly devil-worshipping murderers, then boy, is The Ninth Gate the movie for you. This Roman Polanski oddity stars Johnny Depp as Dean Corso, a rare book dealer hired by a wealthy man, Boris Balkan (Frank Langella), to find a rare book that can summon the devil.
Dean doesn’t believe in all that mumbo jumbo, but he soon has doubts as everyone who knows about the book either mysteriously dies or wants him dead. Can Dean survive long enough to find the book and collect his paycheck? And even if he does, has his skepticism given way to a curiosity that may jeopardize his eternal soul?
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The Ninth Gate is wonderfully enjoyable nonsense, a mystery about Satanism and the death of God that doesn’t take itself seriously at all. Depp hadn’t become a parody of himself yet, so his Dean is one of his characteristically cool antiheroes like Hunter S. Thompson and Edward Scissorhands, who are always fascinating to watch. The Ninth Gate is nice to look at (the cinematography is by Darius Khondji), and the film’s score by Wojciech Kilar evokes a dark, sinister European decadence that’s perfect for Polanski’s devil cult story.
The Ninth Gate is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
‘Unlawful Entry’ (1992)
When Michael and Karen Carr (Kurt Russell and Madeleine Stowe) are assaulted inside their Los Angeles home, they are saved by Officer Pete Davis (Ray Liotta), who offers to secure their residence to prevent any future break-ins. But Pete’s generosity quickly turns into an obsession as the LAPD cop falls in love with Karen and believes Michael is too weak to protect her. Now, Pete will stop at nothing — blackmail, bribery and even murder — to get what he wants, and what he wants is Michael dead.
Released right after the 1992 L.A. riots, Unlawful Entry is a still-relevant thriller that effectively exploits the audience’s distrust in authoritarian figures. (Especially from Los Angeles.) While Russell and Stowe are very good as the film’s helpless couple, the film belongs to Liotta, who makes Pete a memorable, unsettling villain. The late actor holds nothing back as a cop who has lost all sense of morality, and his unhinged performance rivals Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter as one of the most iconic boogeymen of the ’90s.
Unlawful Entry is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
‘Original Sin’ (2001)
When Luis (Antonio Banderas) first meets his bride-to-be Julia (Angelina Jolie), he makes two observations: She’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, and she’s not to be trusted. But he marries her anyway, and they live a seemingly happy life in late 19th-century Cuba. But when an American detective, Walter (Thomas Jane), reveals that Julia has taken nearly all of his money and split, the two men team up to find out where she went and why she deceived Luis.
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That’s just one part of the long, twisty plot of Original Sin, a bonkers remake of François Truffaut’s 1969 movie, Mississippi Mermaid. The rest of the story takes so many turns, it might make your head spin, but it’s never boring and often ridiculously watchable. More importantly, the film has two beautiful movie stars, Banderas and Jolie, at the center of its madness, and they are more than believable as a tempestuous couple who can’t help but love and destroy each other.
Original Sin is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
