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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Rating: 3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Ink Stains

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is little more than good pulp, wrapped up in history, the Holocaust, and Nazism to give it depth, and presented in a 158-minute package to give it weight. (The Swedish version ran 152 minutes.) Fortunately, David Fincher is highly skilled at this kind of thing, having turned in the similar films Seven (1995) and Zodiac (2007). His chilly, precision filmmaking knows how to tease, while still looking head-on into the abyss.

After losing a libel suit, journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is invited to meet retired tycoon Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer). Under the guise of writing a memoir, Vanger hires Mikael to find out what happened to his niece, who mysteriously disappeared many decades earlier. Meanwhile, a troubled, asocial young computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara, also in Fincher's The Social Network), who supplied information on Mikael for the libel case, has been dealing with problems of her own. Mikael discovers her identity tracks her down, and the two take a liking to each other. They form an unlikely team in the search for the missing girl. Little do they know that their search will uncover a series of murders leading back 40 years.

Fincher takes time to build the mystery slowly, showing the numbing amounts of research as well as details like freezing cold cabins and bad vending machine coffee. Every bit of excitement here is mirrored by something either mundane or rotten. (This is not a glamorous mystery.) For the English-language remake -- which still uses all the same names and locations as the original -- superb casting choices were made all the way down the line, with Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara superbly commanding the screen.

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Trailer | Soundtrack | Book

With: Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsg�rd, Steven Berkoff, Robin Wright, Yorick van Wageningen, Joely Richardson, Geraldine James, Goran Visnjic, Donald Sumpter, Ulf Friberg, Bengt C.W. Carlsson, Tony Way, Per Myrberg
Written by: Steven Zaillian, based on a novel by Stieg Larsson
Directed by: David Fincher
MPAA Rating: R for brutal violent content including rape and torture, strong sexuality, graphic nudity, and language
Running Time: 158 minutes
Date: December 21, 2011

Please also see my more in-depth review at Common Sense Media