Review - Kathryn Ryan

 I will begin by saying this right now so as to save people who detest what I am about to say from continuing to read: This is a foreign film. Alright, now that the haters of the genre are gone, let’s get right to it. As sad as it is that people do not like to read subtitles and feel almost cheated out of a movie, some foreign films do not feel like they are from another side of the planet. Sometimes the story, characters, and tone of the film can resonate with a person even though it is not Hollywood made. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a Swedish film that has achieved just that.
Based on a novel by Stieg Larsson, this gritty film follows a man named Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist who always seeks out the truth and works to do what is right. While this may be a noble attribute to have, a group of businessmen have tricked him into publishing a false story and he is going to prison in six months. A wealthy businessman named Henrik Vanger notices his ability to uncover the truth and find out things where other people wont look and hires him to help solve a 40 year-old mystery. His lovely niece had disappeared during a family reunion and he believes that she was murdered by one of her family members. While Blomkvist is on the hunt for answers, a dark and angst-filled computer hacker named Lisbeth comes into the picture. She has been hacking his computer for months on a different assignment given to her, but her curiosity grows when she sees what Blomkvist is trying to solve. Eventually she decides to help him out and together they begin to unearth a shocking truth that no one expected to find.
With the plot and content of this film is extremely rough and gruesome, the cast they found to play each of the characters is superb. Noomi Rapace, who plays Lisbeth, does in incredible and does a truly convincing job of portraying all the many facets of her character. Michael Nyqvist also does a stunning job as Blomkvist, but it is Noomi who truly steals every scene she is in. The rest of the supporting cast creates memorable and intriguing chiropractors that help add to the somber and eerie mood that the film possesses.
There is only one flaw that is truly noticeable by critics and regular Joes alike: The ending is too long, too many scenes, and has too many unnecessary wrap ups. Like the ending to Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King where Frodo has finally dropped the ring into Mt. Doom and all will be well in the world, the film keeps on going for an extra 30 minutes tying up “loose” ends that frankly, I didn’t even notice needed ending, nor did I care that it did. Dragon Tattoo sadly had the same problem once the mystery had been solved, it kept on going to a point where the feeling you had at the beginning of the film, “This movie is great! I don’t want it to end!” changes into, “Gosh end already!” This is a truly sad event, but it happens sometimes when a film stays so close to the novel that it tries to make every scene like the next chapter of the book.
Even though this film is not rated, if I had to give it one, it would be rated R for extreme foul language, excessive violence and gore, strong sexual content including rape and sadism. I would not recommend anyone under the age of 18 seeing this movie, unless the parent will be sitting right next to them ready to cover their eyes for about… 50 minutes total of the movie. It gets gritty, it gets graphic, and it gets gory. While the scenes are all needed to show character development and help move the plot along, it became uncomfortable at times watching some of the event unfold. If you know going into it that this film is rough, you can prepare yourself better.
As harsh as the content is, I would highly recommend this movie to anyone who loves a great mystery and foreign film. I was personally surprised by how enraptured I was by the film, but the tragedy is that this film will probably never be released nationally because of the content, but fear not! Hollywood is making an American version of it so if that shows you anything; even the people in LA-LA land see potential in this flick.
I give The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo four and a half out of five hidden cameras. While the content can be intense to watch and the ending is a little lengthy, it has a power to entrance its audience in the first five minutes. This seems to be the month for dragon themed movies, and they are certainly making high marks in this reviewer’s book.