A good thriller

Rating: 7/10 (3 January 2011)

The girl with the dragon tattoo is based on the novels the Millennium Trilogy by Swedish author Stieg Larsson. It is a dark thriller that deals with money, corruption, sex and murder. The heroine Lisbeth Salander is wonderfully played by Noomi Rapace. Lisbeth is a hacker for hire that is on parole. She becomes interested in a local journalist Mikael Blomkvist. Mikael is soon to begin a prison term for libel against a wealthy businessman when he is hired by the Vanger family to investigate the 40 year old murder of a 16 year old.
Lisbeth has a talent for finding secrets although we, the audience, are kept unaware of the skeletons in her closet. Clearly, a troubled young woman she is intrigued by the case of the journalist whom she believes has been set up. She hacks into his computer to follow the Vanger case and comes across the answer to a clue. She emails Mikael the information which begins there partnership in solving the case.
The setting in the first half of the movie is just as cold and stark as the characters in the story. As Mikael and Lisbeth get closer (or warmer) to the answers of the missing girl, so does the setting. Winter gives way to spring and Mikael and Lisbeth's friendship thaws out as well.
Noomi delivers a brooding pain that is conveyed realistically without being stiff. Very little is revealed of Lisbeth's past but the audience is enthralled waiting, wondering what happened to her to make her the woman that she is? The story gives us interesting twists and turns as we follow the partners piece together 40 year old clues. Who would want to kill a 16 year old girl and why? As the case is slowly revealed we are kept intrigued until its satisfying ending. Be on the lookout for the next in the trilogy, "The girl who played with fire" and the final in the trilogy "The girl who kicked the hornet's nest" due to be released in the fall of 2010.
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