Oh those crazy Swedes and their sex and violence filled ideas... ahh... but seriously this is a thriller that does have it's healthy dose of both. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is one of those films that includes many elements for which we've seen before in thrillers, mysteries and horror films, but finds a way to piece them all together in an interesting and provocative way. At the same time it's a much rougher film than I expected including sadists and rapists coupled with the already running who-done-it and what'd-they-do mystery.Our girl with the dragon tattoo is named Lisbeth Salander a punk, qusi biker/goth sleuth and hacker that works for a major security firm in Stockholm. After she's put onto the job of tracking a magazine mogul/ reporter after he's sentenced to prison she continues looking into him after her job has ended. The magazine reporter, Mikael Blomkvist is spending his remaining six free months by taking a job in another part of the country for an old man trying to find the killer of his favorite niece. Fun part, a body was never found and the incident happened over 40 years ago. Needless to say he's got a lot of work ahead of him. The man is one of the heads of the Vanger group, which was a family owned corporation with a lot of secrets. However what is not so secret is the fact that most of the family hates one another and so it could have been any number of them who killed her. As time passes Mikael delves further and further into the families past and uncovers more and more dirt, but still not much of anything to link a single person to a crime with no clues. Not until Lisbeth comes to the forefront of his life.
Now going into to her background is a bit tricky as I don't want to give much away in the area of the darker, nastier things in the picture. But I'll tell you that she's not somebody to fuck with and have her just take it as she proves throughout a number of scenes. Noomi Rapace plays Lisbeth with a bit more doe-eyed-ness then I would've expected, but there's something within her performance that works. I guess I like the idea of the tough sleuth character considering we see so many sheepish ones in films nowadays. I'm sure with the other two films probably making their way to the U.S. soon we'll see what the rest of her story is really about, but there's a lot of hints to her sorted past. Fun stuff me thinks.
As a whole I don't find it as perfect a thriller, but a damn entertaining one made with a lot of style and guts. There are things that remind of 'Se7en' as well as elements that pop up in a very novel fashion like they would and probably do in the book series. It's not something enough to shout out rip off or anything or even enough to distract from the picture. Fact is I'm just damn pleased to see so many well made mystery based films in one year that are getting big press. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is one of those that'll be talked about highly for a while before disappearing (like "The Vanishing", pun not intended) or perhaps it's fate will be decided upon the release of the next two films in the series; who can say just yet. But it's a film for those who love crime thrillers and grim character pieces. It's got its thrills and bumps and humor and sex appeal to go with it's expansive and classy yet gritty storyline. If the film is near you it's definitely something to go check out.
