adaptation of Stieg Larsson's massive worldwide bestselling book by the same name. Daniel Craig, getting back to serious acting after fighting Bond villains and aliens, plays disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist. After loosing a very public court case that costs him his life's saving and freedom Blomkvist is man without a plan. He is contacted by a lawyer on behalf of aging industrialist Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to write his memoirs. After being summoned the Vanger family compound on a remote island 4-hours from his posh digs in Stockholm, Blomkvist learns the real reason he's there. Henrik wants him to solve the 40 year-old disappearance of his favorite niece Harriet. This embroils Blomkvist into the dark, nefarious and often depraved entrails of the Vanger family empire. A group of "Thieves, misers and bullies. A detestable collection of people. My family." as Henrik describes his own kin.Meanwhile back in the capital we met Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), the girl with said dragon tattoo. A glass fragile waif who is a super-genius but super violent and super introverted by equal measure, who is driven mad by years of emotional and institutional abuse; works as a researcher for a security firm. She has a photographic memory and can break into any computer system. She has been forced into adult supervision as a ward of the state and after the kind man she has known as her guardian has a stroke she is forced into the hands of a rapist who brutally sexually assaults her time and time again. The most talked about scene of the movie will be when she takes her revenge on the molester that includes a taser, metal dildo and a tattoo gun. Extrapolate from there. It is both satisfyiing and disturbing to watch. Eventually Salander and Blomkvist meet and the hunt for a killer of women begins.
Fincher (The Social Network & Fight Club) is a director that can break down complicated story lines into interesting, if not easy to follow narratives. This was very much the case in this film. I would even say too much so. The movie follows the book in a linear and somewhat boring fashion. The violence and brazenness of his other works are somewhat muted here. There are many dark and brooding elements as well as the Fincher whimsy with his choice of score and the opening credits, which look more like a 007 movie sequence than a drama. He usually has a hands-off approach to his actors which can sometimes lead to melodrama as in Aliens 3, but in this case it worked. Robin Wright and Stellan Skarsgård gave heft to their supporting performances. The movie didn't feel so much like an Americanized version of Niels Arden Oplev's Swedish original. It felt more like a companion. This version still had very scandinavian touches with its spartan bleached woods, pristine snow covered forests and fluid ideals on bed-hopping and religion. I do think this version lacks some of the heat and perversion of the Swedish film and can come across as somewhat of a cold procedural rather than the flagrant roller coaster it was advertised to be. Once we realize that Bllomkvist and Salander are not just trying to solve a decades old mystery but track a serial killer that has been at work all across Sweden for over 60 years the movie revs up to a high paced gallop. The finish is totally not expected and extremely unsettling.
Daniel Craig is grizzled and sexy and Rooney Mara is both vulnerable and monstrous and they have great (not explosive) chemistry. Fans of the book or the earlier adaptation may take offense to Fincher and writer Steven Zallian's (Schlindler's List and American Gangster) very liberal choices especially post climax but we warm blooded Americans need some emotional payoff. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a solid film and a must see if you liked the books. Like a tattoo this movie will stay with you for sometime.
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