English adaptation of the Swedish novel “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” seems to be a box office hit as “one of the best movies of the year.” The “Millennium Series” is a series of best-selling books by Stieg Larsson. The primary characters in the series are Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a woman in her twenties with a photographic memory and poor social skills. Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is an investigative journalist and editor of a magazine called Millennium. There are three books in the series: “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” “The Girl Who Played with Fire” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.” It is still unknown if they will make the rest of the books into films, but with all the success the movie has gotten, it’s practically inevitable.

Mikael Blomkvist loses a case brought on by corrupt Swedish industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström. The magazine and Blomkvist are ordered to pay damages and Blomkvist is sentenced to a short prison term. While waiting to serve his sentence, Blomkvist is approached by a lawyer for Henrik Vanger, of The Vanger group, who lives in a remote island surrounded by other family members’ houses. It turns out Mr. Vanger wants to hire Blomkvist to show the truth behind, his niece, Harriet’s murder some forty years ago when she was sixteen. Although her body was never found, Mr. Vanger believes it was murder because that day there was an accident on the only bridge that links the island with the mainland. The bridge was closed—nobody could get out and nobody could get onto the island. Harriet just vanished into thin air. Although forty years have passed on the case, Mr. Vanger still hopes to learn what happened to her before he dies.

Lisibeth Salander, a young woman with a troubled past—due to crime committed in her youth, must report to a probation guardian who controls her finances. She is informed that her previous guardian has had a stroke and a new one has been assigned to her. During her first meeting with him, he forces her to perform a sex act, threatening to accuse her of causing trouble and have her put into a psychiatric hospital if she does not do what she is told. Later, she is attacked in a tunnel and during the fight her laptop is damaged, which means she has to re-visit the probation guardian to request some of her own money to replace it. She arrives at his apartment to get the money for the new computer, fully expecting she might have to endure further sexual harassment from him, but this time, is prepared with a camcorder hidden in her purse, to record the abuse. In spite of her seeming cooperation, he catches her completely off guard, throws her down and hits her violently. Then, he handcuffs her to his bed and binds her legs, proceeding to brutally rape her. Some time later, she shows up unannounced at his door, and turns on him with a stun device. She gets revenge on her attacker in a violent and graphic way. Salander then using a tattoo needle carves permanently on his chest and abdomen that he is sadistic and a rapist. She threatens to reveal the evidence she has to the authorities and the media, and from now on, he has to abide by her own rules, which is to never contact her again, never touch her finances, and release her from guardianship with glowing behavior reports in a year’s time.

Though the actors in this film definitely wouldn’t have been my first choice, I was very surprised with their performance. All the actors seemed to really understand the role that they were playing and did a very nice job performing their part. This isn’t a type of movie to be seen when you just want to relax and hang out with friends, but it’s a movie that I would recommend to anybody if they were into action and some horrific tragedies.