Saturday, March 20, 2010
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Saturday, March 20, 2010
MOVIE REVIEW
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Män Som Hatar Kvinnor)
Thank Heaven For
Little Girls
Dark Avengers
Tattoo You: Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth and Michael Nyqvist as Mikael in Niels Arden
Oplev's drama "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo", which opened in
several cities including San Francisco yesterday .
Music Box
By
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
FOLLOW
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Ambitious, engaging and pulpy, oozing Peckinpah-like sensibilities, "The Girl
With The Dragon Tattoo" rivets, moves and intrigues us. This brutal
Swedish drama takes its audience over the hills and down through the valleys,
its scope vast and at times sprawling. Niels Arden Oplev's film opened
yesterday in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, among other American
cities.
Heralded investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is
convicted of libeling one of Sweden's wealthiest corporate magnates.
Dubious circumstances surround the conviction. Prior to serving jail time
he's hired to solve a 40-year-old murder in the ranks of the Vanger Family, an
elitist, self-hating clan. Meanwhile, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), a
professional computer hacker with the toughness of Anne Parillaud's "La Femme
Nikita" character, is recruited to find out whether the journalist was framed.
The film is based on a trilogy of best-selling "Millennium" books written by the
late Stieg Larsson. Screenwriters Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg
weave three stories, managing to sustain a difficult balancing act of Agatha
Christie-like mystery and Zapruder-type photo and video examination with
emotionally taxing, hard-to-watch scenes. Every scene, even those that
look obscure or disconnected, round into focus in this rough and rugged epic
that takes a page from "The Silence Of The Lambs". While the film is
cleverly devised, some of the cinematography by Jens Fischer and Eric Kress is
intentionally garish.
As with all of the broad swath of players in this intricate drama, the two main
characters have their demons and secrets. History tears at them.
Both take turns going through the bloody ringer. They have scars or
pivotal memories of the past. Sinners sin but don't repent. This
world of turmoil is ensconced in a bucolic, isolated wilderness.
Technology, often pimped and primed for movies, is a constant and important
character in "Tattoo". Furthermore, morality and ethics are as much on
trial as the evildoers in the film, a layered work that keeps its
viewers guessing.
"The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" is a title that feels inapt given what the
audience experiences. Even so, of the numerous stories, much of the major story
being told is in fact Lisbeth's, and the fine performance by Noomi Rapace (whom with the
film's producer won Sweden's top film awards in 2009) is one of the film's best
attributes. She and Mr. Nyqvist have a stellar rapport in their scenes,
and though the story's resolution and tone feel conveniently sewn together,
overall Mr. Oplev's film is memorable, thought-provoking entertainment.
With: Lena Endre, Peter Haber, Sven-Bertil Taube, Peter Andersson, Ingvar
Hirdwall, Marika Langercrantz, Björn Granath, Ewa Fröling, Michalis
Koutsogiannakis, Annika Hallin, Sofia Ledarp.
"The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" is unrated by the Motion Picture
Association of America. Be warned: the film contains scenes of rape,
graphic bloody violence, grisly images and sexual content.
The film's duration is two hours and 37 minutes. The film is in the
Swedish language with English subtitles.
FOLLOW
Read more movie reviews and stories from Omar
here.
Read Omar's "Far-Flung Correspondent" reports for America's pre-eminent Film
Critic Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times -
here
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