The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: If you think the poster is shocking, just wait till you watch the film!

Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist is hired by a wealthy businessman to investigate the disappearance of his grandniece. However she disappeared over forty years ago and the trail is somewhat cold, so he begins working with an investigator named Lisabeth. Together they uncover clues that could not only lead them to the grandniece, but also shed light on a series of murders with possible connections to her disappearance.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was not an easy film to watch. The gritty crime thriller, directed by one of the modern American auteurs in David Fincher and based off of the international best selling novel of the same name by Stieg Larsson, deals with Mikael and Lisabeth's investigation of  a girl's disappearance forty years ago. Along the way, they encounter a number of unsavory characters trying to hinder their attempts to uncover the truth. These unsavory characters, and the dilemmas they present to Mikael and Lisabeth, are what make for some of the more intense scenes of the film (those scenes between Lisabeth and you court appointed guardian Nils are almost unbearable, especially for women). Fincher never shied away from showing these things on screen, but he also never overindulged in the gritty stuff, thereby making those scenes all the more effective and shocking. Those scenes serve specific purposes to the film as a whole and are therefore integral.

The mystery the duo are trying to solve was complex and overwhelming at points, given the long list of suspects as well as the cryptic clues, but this only served to reel the audience in deeper into the film. Fincher was also able to lean on his actors to draw the audience in emotionally. Daniel Craig was sturdy and believable as Mikael, giving him a more physical presence than Michael Nyqvist did when he played the part in the Swedish version of the film. Rooney Mara was an absolute revelation as Lisabeth. She was haunting and delicate at points but able to turn into a fierce women who was ready to fight in an instant. It was impossible to take one's eyes off of her when she was on screen for you never knew what she was going to do. Individually, these two were interesting enough but when they joined up to work together and solve the mystery, it was beyond fascinating to watch. Their scenes together were played with an appealing awkwardness that kept the audience wondering just what was developing between the two of them.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was a classic who-dunnit thriller with an entertaining edge sorely missing in most Hollywood films nowadays.

Grade: A