The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2010) is a Swedish mystery film with English subtitles that was originally released overseas in late 2009, but the official U.S. release date wasn't until March of 2010. Dragon Tattoo is the first of a three movie trilogy, with the other two films being The Girl Who Played With Fire (released July 9, 2010), and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (released October 29, 2010).
From the opening scene, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo grabs a hold of you and doesn’t let go. Set in Sweden, the story is about an investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) who has just lost a Libel case against a crooked Swedish tycoon and is sentenced to three months in prison. Mikael has six months before he must turn himself over the authorities, and during this time is hired by Henry Vanger, an Industrialist and the leader of the Vanger Group, who wants Blomkvist to investigate the 40-year-old unsolved disappearance of his beloved niece Harriet.
From the opening scene, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo grabs a hold of you and doesn’t let go. Set in Sweden, the story is about an investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) who has just lost a Libel case against a crooked Swedish tycoon and is sentenced to three months in prison. Mikael has six months before he must turn himself over the authorities, and during this time is hired by Henry Vanger, an Industrialist and the leader of the Vanger Group, who wants Blomkvist to investigate the 40-year-old unsolved disappearance of his beloved niece Harriet.
Unbeknownst to Blomkvist, he has been under surveillance by a security firm led by a troubled yet very gifted computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Repace). After the Libel case ended, Lisbeth’s interest in Blomkvist remained, and she continued to hack into Mikael’s computer to monitor his activities. In order to investigate the unsolved disappearance, Blomkvist moved onto the Vanger estate and resided in one of the guest houses. During one of her hacking sessions, Lisbeth notices the case that Blomkvist is now working on and can’t resist helping with one of the clues, emailing her findings to him under her hacker name WASP. After the initial shock of being hacked wore off, Mikael tracks down Lisbeth and offers her a job helping him on the case, which she reluctantly accepts. Now working together, Blomkvist and Salander begin digging into 40 years of the Vanger family secrets in order to try to solve the mystery of what happened to Harriet Vanger.
If there is ever a time to listen to a recommendation of mine, this is it. See this movie! Dragon Tattoo is an intense mind-blowing thrill ride. The twists and turns of the story come from every direction, and Noomi Repace’s portrayal of Lisbeth is hauntingly stunning. My only caution is the film is unmerciful in its depiction of some graphic rape scenes, which may challenge some viewers. But overall this film is a masterpiece, and I don’t throw around that term lightly. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is by far the best murder mystery film I’ve seen, and easily one of the top 3 films of 2010. (**** Stars)
No comments:
Post a Comment