Excellent thriller

Rating: 10/10 (17 January 2010)

This Swedish film is one of the best thrillers I've seen in a long time. Based on a best seller novel by Stieg Larsson I haven't read (the first in a trilogy), it starts with Mikael, a middle aged investigative journalist being asked by the old patriarch of a powerful business clan to solve the disappearance of his beloved 16 year old nephew forty years ago. Since this happened during a family reunion at an isolated island, the patriarch believes that she was murdered, and that only a member of the family could have done so. Mikael is soon joined in the investigation by Lisbeth Salander, a troubled but brilliant twenty something female hacker, and soon they are lifting the veil on the very dark secrets behind this prestigious family. Gripping throughout, the film benefits from a number of terrific performances, especially Noomi Rapace playing Lisbeth Salander and Sven Bertil Taube as the patriarch of the clan. While the film is more than two hours long, it is never boring, and all the loose ends are tied brilliantly at the end.