If it’s a light weekend you’re after, with a laugh and a delightful love life, you’ll find solace in your own collection of romantic comedies rather than the dark mystery found in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Don’t get me wrong, Daniel Craig (Casino Royale, Cowboys and Aliens) and Rooney Mara (The Social Network) both play intriguing characters in a story fraught with questions. Daniel Craig plays Mikael, an investigative journalist hired to write a biography of Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer, A Beautiful Mind, The Sound of Music), a retired successful businessman.

But, more importantly, he is hired to solve the murder case of the man’s great-niece some forty years ago.
Mara plays Lisbeth, a peculiar girl in her mid-twenties who is a mastermind of technology.

Together she and Mikael work to solve the case, but not without making a few enemies and escaping near death.

Henrik Vanger has a large and troubled family. Each family member lives in a separate house on the same island, and each has his or her vendetta with a brother or mother or cousin’s father.

Henrik Vanger believes that someone from his family is the culprit in his great-niece’s murder. Through a series of short and low-lit scenes, the mystery plays out as we see Daniel Craig fighting through both years of police reports and unforeseen gunfire.

The level of intensity begins high and remains so throughout the entirety of the film, with some scenes perhaps more graphic than what is kosher.

The film is based on a novel by Stieg Larsson, which was made into a Swedish film in 2009. The American film does very well. It keeps the focus on the plot and there are no extended car chases or superfluous explosions to waste time.

Don’t expect to get any chuckles out of this story, though. Not even an iota of comic relief but rather heart pounding scenes that will keep you questioning what will happen in the next sixty seconds.

It’s a wonderful mystery that allows you to play the game in guessing the identity of the killer along with Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara. I give this film four stars out of five.