The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Unlikey Alliances

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Rated: R Graphic Nudity, Brutal Violent Content, Torture, Language, Rape and Strong Sexuality
Release Date: December 21, 2011
Runtime: 2 hrs 38 min

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Director: David Fincher
Writers: Steven Zaillian, novel by Stieg Larsson
Cast: Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgård, Robin Wright, Steven Berkoff

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SYNOPSIS: After a lawsuit leaves a journalist at the wrong end of a career he takes an assignment to investigate a 40-year-old murder. Making some headway, he requests a brilliant but troubled research assistant to help him.

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REVIEW: Director David Fincher has helmed such unique fare as Flght Club and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and intense mysteries like Zodiac. Based on the first of a trilogy of international best selling novels known as the "Millennium Trilogy" published posthumously by the Swedish author Steig Larsson, Fincher takes on Americanized version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (from the book translated to "Men Who Hate Women" and the 2009 Swedish produced film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). Does Fincher's version live up to the hype worthy of the international best-selling books and the original film trilogy?

Millennium Magazine journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig, Quantum of Solace) emerges on the losing end of a libel lawsuit against a billionaire financier named Wennerström. As his savings disappears for damages and his magazine starts to flounder financially, Mikael is vetted then approached by Frode (Steven Berkoff, The Tourist) on behalf of Hendrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer, Priest), a retired businessman who has obsessed over the disappearance of his granddaughter Harriet (Moa Garpendal) over 40 years ago and has feared that she was murdered. As Mikael digs into the family's background and past under the guise of Hendrick's researcher for his own memoirs Mikael struggles to find the connections to the clues he has access to. Eventually, with a thin shred of proof and an gut feeling, Mikael requests the assistance of the genius troubled antisocial computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara, The Social Network) the researcher who originally vetted him for the project to begin with.

Clocking in at 158 minutes, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo would seem to be too large a commitment to be worth while. On the contrary, Fincher's experience and style lends perfectly to the slow building mystery set before Craig's Mikael and Mara's Lisbeth. The anticipation of following the detectives using their own methods hooks you from the start. In fact, Mikael and Lisbeth do not actually meet face to face until the second half of the film. But while Mikael starts his investigation as a retreat from his own personal and professional problems, Lisbeth endures her own internal and external demons as she tries to make it on her own as a ward of the state with the albatross of being labeled as criminally incompetent.

Starting with the abstract introduction of the Karen O and Trent Reznor's amped up rendition of Led Zepplin's "The Immigrant Song", Reznor's scores soon recede to buzzing and pops that prod at the back of the brain like an itch that can't be scratched. Minimalistic in nature from an impressionist point of view, Reznor and Atticus Ross's work focuses the audience's attention into the fabric of Fincher's dark story and gray settings.   

If unfamiliar with the novels or the original films, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a sometimes brutal, sometimes beautiful, graphic film. Showing nudity and violence, Fincher never puts anything on display in a gratuitous manner. Some of the acts of brutality borders on the obscene and may offend some movie-goers' threshold tolerances, but rest assured that there is meaning in everything. Rooney Mara is the standout performance as Lisbeth Salander, her brilliant character both off-putting and sympathetic.

A fresh eye for this first entry of the Americanized "Millennium" trilogy, having read any of the novels or watched any of the original films, Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a serious slow building take at the brutality that man can inflict on man, or on women. Since I did not have previous works to rely on to spoil the ending of this version, I came away entertained and in awe of what good story, great characters, and fine direction can accomplish.

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WORTH: Matinee and DVD

The Tourist

Look for a Domestic Destination Instead

[Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Paul Bettany, Steven Berkoff, Timothy Dalton]

image from daemonsmovies.com

RANT: Today, an old man and his wife were in the theater. It was very touching to see the man take his wife from her wheelchair to the theater seat, put her drink in the armrest holder and cover her with the blanket they had brought with them from home. I could only imagine the richness of their lives together up to today.

SYNOPSIS: Elise Ward is the subject of a police investigation. As she trains to Venice, she selects Frank Tupelo, a math teacher from Wisconsin, as a diversion in order to reconnect with her criminal lover.

Screenplay writer and director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck brings Venice alive with this cat and mouse tale. All of the elements were in place with the story, the exotic locales and a top notch cast to be a hell of a ride. Unfortunately, even with Depp, Jolie and Bettany, The Tourist should have stayed home.

Angelina Jolie is sultry sexy and Johnny Depp is at his bumbling best. But even though Jolie's eyes could smolder a hole through a man, the chemistry between Depp and her is tenuous at best. Depp's character, Frank Tupelo, is a math teacher from Wisconsin targeted by Jolie's Elise Ward during the high-speed train to Venice. Elise uses Frank for his similar build to her long-missing criminal lover, Alexander Piers, in order to distract and confuse the investigators, led by Paul Bettany's Inspector John Acheson, who are running surveillance on Elise once in Venice. Add to that intrigue British drug lord Reginald Shaw who surrounds himself with Russian mercenaries bent on capturing Alexander Piers in order to get his stolen money back.

For a suspenseful cat and mouse drama, there needs to be the chance of failure or pain. Since Reginald Shaw directs his men to not harm the mistakenly targeted Tupleo, every bribe, every boat chase through the canals of Venice, every near miss is really just a shadow of effort. We also are certain that the beautiful Jolie will not be harmed, hurt or disfigured in The Tourist (nothing like Salt) since she is far too valuable as the porcelain doll that she is. Bettany brings a tired intensity as the long pursuing Inspector John Acheson. Berkoff somewhat relies on the Reginald Shaw reputation for murdering entire families (even the dog if it suits him), although he does get his hands dirty a little bit.

Although I had high hopes for this film - despite the critics' reviews - I have to side with the general consensus. Venice and Jolie are exquisite and Depp is ever fun to watch, but all together there is just not enough luggage to make it worth the trip.

Worth: Netflix

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