The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo -- Film Review

Revolving around an investigative reporter and his unlikely crime-solving partner, Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson's posthumous Millennium trilogy of novels were not so much best-sellers as international publishing phenomena. The film adaptation of the first book, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," is, like its source material, at once formula thriller, scathing social commentary and dark history lesson. But it's also a more eloquent work; smartly condensing the novel's sprawl, the feature forgoes prosaic detail for cinematic vigor. The result is a character-driven mystery of considerable emotional power, often harrowing and always compelling.