Well made and compelling (but needless) remake of a Swedish crime thriller.

Rating: 8/10 (10 April 2012)

The Girl With The Dragoon Tattoo (2011) is a direct translation of a 2009 Swedish movie starring Michael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace, based on a smash hit bestseller by the late Steig Larsson. It's quite sad in some ways that so many English-speaking viewers have a near-xenophobic attitude towards subtitled movies, necessitating Hollywood's fascination with remaking anything and everything that has been a hit on the continent. All too often, these Hollywood revamps fail to live up to their foreign source material, leaving one to ponder whether the whole remake game is really worthwhile at all. Although this version sticks very closely to the Swedish original – so closely, in fact, that it is essentially a re-run in terms of plot and narrative – it is done with enough energy and esprit de corps by director David Fincher to emerge a very commendable remake indeed, certainly one of the best in recent memory.
Journalist Michael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) runs Stockholm-based magazine Millennium, which has just been crippled after losing a libel case against a corrupt businessman. Facing the loss of his business and all his life-savings, Blomkvist gets an unexpected chance at redemption when he is summoned by aging tycoon Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to the remote northern island of Hedeby to help solve an old family mystery. Forty years earlier, Henrik's niece Harriet vanished under mysterious circumstances and has long been assumed dead. However, every year Henrik receives for his birthday a framed flower like the ones Harriet used to make for him, sent anonymously from an undisclosed location. He has long suspected that Harriet was murdered by a family member on that fateful day forty years ago, and believes the murderer is sending the flowers in an effort to drive him to despair. Blomkvist is hired to delve into the mystery, coming at it with a fresh pair of eyes. To aid him in his quest, he enlists Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a bisexual, computer hacking cyber punk who happens to be a surveillance whiz with a photographic memory. Comrades between the sheets as well as in their quest for the truth, Blomkvist and Salander soon discover their lives are in danger as they close in on a very perverted serial killer indeed.
Whichever version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo you watch first is likely to be your favourite, simply because the story relies on surprise revelations and a handful of powerful shock scenes for its effect. Both versions generate a compelling and utterly absorbing mystery, benefiting hugely from authentic Swedish location work and the cunningly twisty narrative. In this one, Craig is extremely good as Blomkvist, giving perhaps his most admirable performance to date. The real scene stealer though is Mara, suggesting quiet torment and rage as the weird but resourceful heroine. It's a difficult role, calling for some very frank scenes to say the least, including one of the most graphic rapes ever seen in a mainstream movie. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is slightly overlong and the journey to the denouement is ultimately more gripping than the solution itself, but overall it is a very well made and compulsively watchable thriller. Remaking a movie two years after the original may seem pretty pointless, but if it must be done then at least Fincher does it with his usual provocative panache.