Men Who Hate Women was the original title of the Swedish novel by the late Stieg Larsson that The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is based on. And it’s an appropriate title for a film involving rape, torture, mutilation, serial killing and even Nazis. Fortunately, I’m all for grizzly cinema so I mostly enjoyed this intense thriller, except for its prolonged and cheesy happy ending.
One big reason to see Tattoo is the certainty of an American remake coming soon; it will be a neutered version and probably star Kristen Stewart or some crap. You’re better off seeing this original and bragging to your friends how cultured and knowledgeable you are when the commercial remake comes out.
Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is an honest journalist framed for libeling a crooked industrialist. Sentenced to prison, Blomkvist takes one last job before he goes away. His task is to investigate a 40-year-old case of a missing 16-year-old-girl, Harried Vanger.
The case comes from 82-year-old wealthy industrialist Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube), who’s part of the ” Vanger clan”: a secretive, cult like family who lives in seclusion. Although Henrik’s niece’s body was never found, he is almost certain she was killed by the fearsome and literally Nazi ridden Vanger clan. But there are complications, like Henrik receiving a pressed flower every year on Harried’s birthday since her disappearance.
The real fun starts when cyber-punk/ mental ward patient on leave Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) enters. She’s a complicated character who is tough but not unconquerable; naive yet wise; and bat-shit crazy. Lisbeth (I love that name) helped invesitigate Blomkvisit for Henrik and, for undisclosed personal reasons, agrees to help in the investigation.
What proceeds is mostly a police procedural consisting of lots of investigation and narrowing down suspects. There are a few nice touches like the use of the Internet that actually looks (and loads) like our real life Internet. Nothing’s worse than seeing a BS Yahoo! web page in a movie to immediately take you out of the experience. Eventually, the duo get romantically involved despite their drastic personality differences and soon uncover that their case could be related to other 40-year-old murder cases. And that leads to a big break that sends everyone down a very violent journey.
If you are a sensitive movie goer easily grossed-out, then skip Tattoo because you’ll be haunted for awhile. I have a strong tolerance for cinematic brutality and couldn’t help get disgusted a few times. That’s not to say it’s exploitative or too extreme: I understand why the filmmakers were explicit and respect their vision. They want to tell a brutal story honestly and they show enough care in developing characters and setting scenes believably that it all feels legitimate. About 75% of Tattoo has great direction, till the forced happy ending and cheesy explanations for character motivations better left unanswered. I actually felt a little cheated by the ending because a more appropriately brutal finish would have capped off the adventure perfectly and possibly been worthy of 5/5.
4/5: A gem in the rough
Article written by Brett Fletcher on GotchaMovies.com. Reposted with permission.
Posted in Movie Review
By GotchaMovies
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