This dynamite thriller shivers with suspense. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is adapted from the global bestseller by the late Stieg Larsson. Homicide is just the tip of this Nordic iceberg. She is a 24-year-old goth girl named Lisbeth Salander, with body piercings and tattoos: thin, small, fierce, damaged, a genius computer hacker. Her revenge on her abusive guardian is graphic enough to freeze your blood. No fair revealing more, except to say that Danish director Niels Arden Oplev fits the puzzle pieces together like a grandmaster of the mystery game. Larsson followed Tattoo with two more posthumously published bestsellers, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest (both shot for Swedish TV). But Tattoo is the only one directed by Oplev, whose gift for ratcheting up tension and deepening character makes him a talent to watch. His haunting and hypnotic movie gets under your skin.
This is a movie about characters who have more important things to do than be characters in an action thriller.
