Tuesday, January 3, 2012

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)


How a movie with sex, rape, forcible sodomy, nudity torture, mayhem, violence, dismembered people and animals, drug and alcohol usage, was able to get a R rating instead of NC-17 is beyond me.  Now normally I would say that all these things are a cheap way to drag people into the seats for the shock factor only.  But not so with this movie.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is based upon the first book in the trilogy by Stieg Larrson.  There is already a Swedish version of this film made in 2009.  I’ve not read the books, or seen the original screen adaptation, although it and its sequel have been in my Netflix queue for months.

The story is that of the brilliant hacker Lisbeth Salander, played by Rooney Mara, and journalist Mikael Blomkvist, Daniel Craig, as they work together to try and solve a decades old murder.  While the movie is told with Mikael as the main character, it is Lisbeth who is the real heroine, and total bad ass, to the story.  After being sued for libel and loosing, Mikael is discredited and financially ruined.  He is approached by a billionaire and asked to investigate his family to try and determine who killed his great niece back in the 1960’s. Mikael agrees and hires Lisbeth to assist.  Along the way the pair delves into the entire family’s sordid secrets.

I’m not a huge fan of mysteries because I usually predict the ending within the first half of the movie.  To my pleasant surprise, that was not the case here.  The movie is full of twists, turns and red herrings. At over 2 and a half hours, the movie is very long...however it doesn't feel like it.  The pacing is perfect, and kept me riveted the whole time.  The performances by the main characters, and even the supporting characters, were excellent.  I expect to see several Academy Award nominations for this film.  The beautiful Rooney Mara, has already been nominated for a Golden Globe.  She will be up against competition like Viola Davis (The Help).  I do not think she will win, since she is nude in the movie, and in close competitions, the movie with nudity usually looses; but at least her performance was strong enough that they recognized it despite the nudity.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.  Much like Black Swan, it has a real dark feel to it, but is an exceptional story.  I would highly recommend you see this film, but DO NOT let your children watch it. In fact, I would discourage letting teenagers watch it.  I give it a 9 / 10.

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