Excellence

Rating: 10/10 (27 February 2011)

"The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" is a rich, suspenseful mystery that sucks you in from the opening seconds and does not let go for the next two and-a-half hours.
The problem with most mystery films is that there's no mystery at all: clichéd characters, uninspired acting, a paper-thin plot and a lack of genuine suspense. This film is the exact opposite.
First, the acting. Noomi Rapace is brilliant as Lisbeth Salander, a brutish hacker with a violent past, and Michael Nyqvist is perfect as Mikael Blomkvist, a magazine reporter who's been framed by a dirty industrialist. Neither of the two leads ever hit a false note... they're not just characters, they're real people with elaborate back-stories and wonderfully complex personalities.
The case of Harriet's disappearance is so challenging that the film never dwells on Lisbeth and Mikael's emotions; the satisfaction comes from watching them try to deal with their personal issues while they chip away at a mystery so deep it almost consumes them. Every time they solve a piece of the puzzle they find five more pieces, and the story behind the Vanger family tree is so layered- and twisted- that there's almost not enough time to cover it all in one movie.
Every minute of the film is thrilling: it's directed with a focused urgency, an immediacy that keeps the tension high but never feels manipulative... the two and-a-half-hours feel more like forty-five breathless minutes. The result is a magnetic watchability- "Godfather"-like- that is almost hypnotic, the stuff of great cinema.
I'm very difficult to please when it comes to movies, but this was one of the most substantial, exciting films I've seen in years. Acting, story, suspense... "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" is a triple-crown winner, and an excellent movie not to be missed.
GRADE: A