The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

I don’t know how many of you have read the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or even seen the other versions of this movie. My mum got me the book a while ago and I could say like I do in every blog I write where the adaptation of the book is different than the movie, that the book is better. …and I could rant about how frustrating it is that they miss so many things and jump around. Just because I am not doing that for this book – to – movie adaptation, do not think I don’t want to go off on my normal rant. I do…but sometimes…like today I feel like I am preaching to an empty church. So all I am going to say is…if you haven’t read the book. Read it. It is better than the movie.

Anywho. My friend Lenny recently purchased a Kindel. I know…a little behind the times, but the man is in his 60’s and retired so the Kindel was a surprising. But one of the first books that he downloaded was the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and he loved it, so when we started seeing the previews, we knew we had to go see it. So the two of us set off for a Saturday matinee (let’s face it, movies are getting to darn expensive these days!)

The movie starts with Henrik Vanger (played by Christopher Plummer), retired CEO of Vanger Industries opening a gift on his birthday.   He has received yet another pressed flower from an anonymous sender. Placing this one among the rest (that we assume he has gotten over the years) he makes a phone call to the retired Inspector Gustaf Morell (played by Donald Sumpter).

We move from a small town to a metropolitan city. Millennium magazine co-owner Mikael Blomkvist (played very well by Daniel Craig) is being harassed by reporters and paparazzi as he lives the courthouse after losing a big libel law suit against the corrupt businessman Hans-Erik Wenneerstrom (played by Ulf Friberg)

**Side Note – I had to look up how to spell these damn names! There was no way I knew them off the top of my head, and I so didn’t feel like butchering a bunch of names!**

Going up against Wenneerstrom was a stupid move on Mikael’s behalf. Wennerstrom is rich and powerful and will dragging Wenneerstrom into court…Wennerstrom dragged Mikael’s name through the mud. He destroyed Mikael’s reputation and took all of Mikael’s life savings.  Mikael knows that there is own one way to save his company and he signs over full owner ship to his co-owner and on again off again lover (even though she is married) Erika Berger (played by Robin Wright). Erika tries to talke Mikael out of it, but they both know that if he says…Millenium is done.

Henrik Vanger’s attorney Dirch Forde (played by Steven Berkoff) arrives into the city and meets with the head of Milton Security. For the results of a background check that Milton Security has run on Mikael Blomkvist. Against the CEO of Milton Securities advice, Forde has requested that the person who did the background check to come into the office personally so he can meet her. In walks Lisbeth Salander (played by Rooney Mara). Lisbeth is a young girl in her early twenties with tattoos and piercings all over her body. Forde however is not bothered by this and proceeds to question Lisbeth on how she managed to get all of this information on Mikael, but Lisbeth is cool and collective.

A few weeks pass and it is Christmas eve, Mikael is celebrating the holidays with his loved ones (including his lover and his lovers husband) when he receives a unexpected phone call from Frode, telling him that he has a job from him and asking him to come to Hedeby Island to meet with Henrik Vanger himself. At first Mikael refuse saying it is the holidays, but he quickly realizes that he doesn’t have many job opportunities knocking down his door and agrees to drive up and meet with Vanger.

The drive to the small Island town is calm, but once Mikael arrives things quickly turn. Henrik tells Mikael that he would like to hire him to investigate a 40 year old cold case, his niece, Harriet Vanger who disappeared from the island. Henrik is convinced that Harriet was murdered, he needs closure. Before she died, Harriet would always give Henrik a pressed flower for his birthday…a tradition that he is being spited by whoever murdered her by continuing to send him flowers on his birthday to this day. Henrik is convinced that someone inside the family murdered Harriett. Mikael listens to the requests and is cautious, the case is 40 years old and he knows he is not an investigator, but Henrik is offering to much money and Mikael agrees to stay in a cottage on the island under the pretense of writing a biography about Henrik and his life. In addition to the very substantial sum of money that Henrik is offering, he also offers Mikael revenge. He claims to have incriminating evidence on Wennerstrom that would take that old man down. Eager for the money and the revenge, Mikael waste no time getting started. 

Lisbeth although a genius in her own right is a ward of the state.

**Side Note - Guess that is one of the reasons they gave her all tattoos and stuff…make her seem more like a rebellious teenager or something, anger at the gov’t**

Anyway…she goes over to her guardian’s house, this old man, only to realize that he has had a massive stroke. She calls the police, but with her ward in the hospital, the state moves her guardianship to someone else. That someone else is a lawyer by the name of Nils Bjurman (played by Yorick Van Wageningen). Now Nils is one sick puppy…or should I say sick dog.  He takes control of her money, when she asks for some money to pay her bills, he forcers her to suck his penis. Afterwards he polite explains that if she doesn’t do what he asks, he will have her labeled incompetent and locked way for the rest of her life.  Discussed she leaves, furious at what she had to do and pissed as hell at him for making her do it!!!

 Lisbeth is not a simple cookie and she devises a way to get payback. A few nights later she shows up at Nils apartment. She says she has run out of money again. Nils politely invites her into the house and leads her back to the bedroom. Lisbeth puts her book-bag down on a chair and while Nils is in the bathroom, she adjusts it so that it is facing the bed. Nils walks back out and suddenly he is on top of her. He knocks her unconscious and by the time she comes too again the sick freak has her tied to the bed spread eagle. Seeing her eyes open Nils leans forward pulls her shirt up over her head and rips her pants down her. He forces himself on her and rapes her while she screams out in pain and agony. Like I said…sick freak! But Nils is unaware of what our little tattooed genius has done…recorded the entire thing from a camera in her book-bag.  After Nils is done he gives Lisbeth a check for 10k and sends her on her way.

Over this time, Mikael had made himself somewhat at home in the run down cottage on the island. Although Henrik has invited Mikael onto the island, the rest of the family is extremely standoffish and he soon realizes that it is not only a cold case he has to solve, but what is going on with this dysfunctional family. Every single family member on the island either hate, doesn’t speak to or is work against another family member.  Mothers not talking to kids, kids not talking to parents and brother and sisters not hating each other for years. None of them are responsive to Mikael’s questions, especially when he brings up Harriett and the past.

**And they say only poor people can have crazy dysfunctional homes!! HA**

Mikael starts to go through Harriets old things and he comes across a list of names and numbers.  Unable to figure out what the significance of this is, he calls the retired chief investigator who tells him that the number are phone numbers, but they ran that lead down and nothing came of it. Mikael doesn’t quite believe this, but he lets it drop…until his religious daughter comes to visit and she asks him why he has bible verse written out next to people’s names.

After his kid leaves, Mikael begins to look it up and finds that each verse from the bible describes a different method of killing someone for a specific sin.

**Isn’t religion grand…you can really see how it is all about the forgiveness there. **

Lisbeth isn’t taking the rape well, the poor outcast dysfunctional unloved girl is already messed up enough, but this has pushed her over the edge. She goes back to Nils house, but this time with a plan in mind. She knocks on his door and as soon as he opens it she steps in and tazers the living crap out of him. Like HARD CORE! He falls to the ground passed out. Lisbeth drags him down to his bedroom while he wets himself after losing control of his body functions and she ties him up at the foot of his own bed. Sitting on his chest she smacks him away. Calmly (and a little crazy like) Lisbeth explains to the pig that the other night she had just expected him to force her to give him a blow job again, and she had come prepared…she had recorded it…and instead of recording a forced blow job, she had gotten rap. Now if he ever wanted to stay out of jail, send her to jail, try to force her to do anything like that again, or try to have her labeled legally incompetent…the contents of that video would leak all over the web! Realizing that he is trapped he begins to beg, but she doesn’t listen. Instead she pulls out a tattoo gun and writes on his chest I AM A RAPIST PIG across it…and then she sticks a lamp up his ass. Justice is served.

Mikael is infatuated with the mystery. He believes he has found the trail of a serial killer who is using god to back up his crimes. However Henrik has fallen ill and Frode and Martin Vanger (played by Stellan Skarsgaard) Henriks nephew & current CEO of Vanger Industries have taken over things. Frode suggests that Mikael leaves the case and goes home, but Martin is convinced that his uncle would have wanted Mikael to keep going. Mikael requests a research assistant to help him and Frode knows just the girl for the job. He recommends Lisbeth and tells Mikael that she did a background check on Mikael before they hired him. Shocked Mikael asks to see the results, he realizes that Lisbeth hacked his computer but sees her talent and goes to offer her a job.

Lisbeth still reeling from the rape has thrown herself into drugs and sex. She doesn’t want to come up for air and has no reason to…until Mikael knocks on her door. At first she believes he has come to hurt her since she did hack into his computer, but Mikael explains that he wants her help. He would like to hire her as an assistant to find a serial killer targeting woman. Well considering she had just been raped by a freaking pig….she agrees….heck wouldn’t any woman asked at that moment in their life! Lisbeth tells him she will meet him at the cottage.

Back on the island, Mikael is spending more time trying to figure out what happened to this family to make them so dysfunctional and what happened to Harriet. While out exploring one of the last places that Harriet was seen alive a hidden gunman sends a shot roaring by Mikaels head. He realizes his life is in danger and that the murder is still here…living on the island after all these years. He hurries back to the house to find that Lisbeth has already arrived and has begun to make herself at home. She has put up surveillance cameras and hooked up to a high power wi-fi…along with doing a bunch of other IT tech stuff to make computers and hacking easier.  

Mikael welcomes Lisbeth into the home, and gives her the couch, but this doesn’t last long. Lisbeth, intrigued by this man…who doesn’t seem to want to rape her or hurt her strips down and seduces him.

But Lisbeth and Mikael don’t spend all their time in bed, they begin to dig deeper into the murder/disappearance of Harriet and the murder of the other woman from around the area. Mikael and Lisbeth come across some old photos of the last days of Harriet’s life. She is attending a parade, but unlike the on-lookers around her, she is looking as something that frightens her. Mikael tracks down a woman who had taken some picture son that day and finds out that Harriet was watching a man across the street, a man that Mikael now believes is the killer.

The time has come for them to dig even deeper into the financial and corporate history of the company. Mikael asks Martian for access and soon Lisbeth uncovers a corrupt connection between the company and murders not just on the island, but all over the world dating back to the early 1940’s. In every town there is a Vanger….a woman is murdered.  

So I am going to stop relating the story here.  As the plot unfolds you don’t see all the twists and turns, but the murderer is slowly revealed and when it hits you, you ask yourself…how did I not see that coming!  If you have or have not read the books or see the original movie, this one is still worth watching. I hate to give away the ending to those who have not seen it and for those of you who have read/watched it, you already know.

But I must say that I am not a fan of Mikael. I think he is a dog, like most men and used Lisbeth, this poor broken girl in a despicable way.

Overall, I am glad I went to see this movie, but it was really strange sitting in a mid-day matinee surrounded by a bunch of blue hairs while a young woman is raped on the big screen. Made me just a little uncomfortable.