Blu-Ray Review: Thrilling ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’

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CHICAGO – With “The Girl Who Played With Fire” currently selling tickets in theaters (check out our review here) and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” selling millions of copies all season long, the trifecta of summer thrills can only be complete with a look at the Blu-ray release of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” It’s a “Girl” Summer.

Blu-Ray Rating: 3.5/5.0

“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” is not your typical mystery/thriller. The original title in its home country translates more directly as “Men Who Hate Women” and the film contains a disturbing look at a culture based on misogyny. This is tough stuff that mostly works even if some critics have gone remarkably overboard in comparing it to “The Silence of the Lambs” or “Se7en.” It’s nowhere near as accomplished as those films but it’s definitely worth a rental — even if just to see what everyone’s talking about this summer.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 6th, 2010
Photo credit: Music Box Films

Director Niels Arden Oplev and writers Nikolaj Arcel & Rasmus Heisterberg take their time introducing the viewer to the trilogy’s two main players — journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) and hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace). The writer is in the midst of a crisis after being framed by a corporation who set him up with a juicy story only to have all his sources recant and accuse him of libel. Meanwhile, Lisbeth has a probation officer who will ruin her life unless she allows him to continuously violently rape her. Eventually, Salander gets the upper hand on her tormentor and is soon united with the journalist she’s been hacking and, therefore, learning the details of the salacious case he’s been working.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 6th, 2010 Photo credit: Music Box Films

The case that doesn’t really get going until the second act of the film brings Mikael and Lisbeth into the world of The Vanger Group, a collective of powerful men and women industrialists led by Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube). Henrik’s niece disappeared four decades ago and he wants to make one last stab at closing the cold case before he dies. He thinks she’s dead and Mikael has demons of his own to exorcise and so he takes on the assignment, one that leads him to a very dark place that includes decades of torture and murder.

Having not read the books and therefore unable to fill in the gaps in the storytelling, the opening hour of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” lacks dramatic force and sometimes feels unnecessarily graphic in its brutal misogyny. The narrative takes hold after about an hour and the whodunit ends up a pretty satisfactory thriller but I think the film could have been a bit tighter (it runs 152 minutes) and expertly made (and probably will be when David Fincher remakes it next year).

Having said that, the performances by Rapace and Nyqvist deserve acclaim. Rapace is a particularly fascinating actress who’s even better in the sequel and is really making this character her own to the point that it’s going to take some work for an American actress to shake the memory of the original “Girl” in the remake. These are tough roles that demand a lot of these actors and they mostly deliver.

The Blu-ray release of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” is a notable one, especially for a small company like Music Box Films. There are hundreds of small, art films released every year that don’t get the HD treatment and we should support the small ones that are willing to embrace the movement the way that all of them should. The film’s transfer in 1080p and its accompanying Swedish 5.1 Dolby Digital track truly enhance the experience.

As for special features, it would have been nice to hear a commentary from the director or the film stars, but perhaps that will come with the second or third film. For now, MB Films provide an interview with Rapace, the film’s trailer, “The Vanger Family Tree,” and an English language dub track (that should never, ever be used instead of the film’s original language…as a rule). It’s not a great collection of special features but just the 1080p transfer and the interview are more than most art films are given. Then again, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” is not like most art films.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com