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Men Who Hate Women – Movie Review
Men Who Hate Women is the movie adaptation of the bestselling Swedish novel Män som hatar kvinnor by Stieg Larsson and is the first in the Millennium Trilogy. English speakers may know it better as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but the movie version holds the original title and was released early 2009 and amazingly the sequel has already been released and the third movie is due out later this month, so it’s a perfect time to add the review of the English version.
The story in Men Who Hate Women follows a middle aged writer Mikael Blomkvist played by Michael Nyqvist who is taken to court by a Industrialist company Wennerström for an article he wrote that was filled with incorrect information, however at the time of writing the information was solid, but when the court case appeared so did the previous evidence, leading to Blomkvist being sentenced to six months in prison.
At the same time were introduced to Lisbeth Salander played by Noomi Rapace who is a 24 year old hacker that works for an information company that is currently looking into the case involving Blomkvist, Salander shows her attention to detail in her report on the man and the case.
Before his term in prison Blomkvist is contacted by Henrick Vanger who asks him to investigate the case of his murdered niece which leads to Blomkvist and Lisbeth teaming up when Lisbeth finds a lead while still monitoring and hacking Blomkvists computer while hes working on the Vanger case.
Men who Hate Women is a long movie at around two and a half hours, but its never dull for one moment, and i wish more movies would subscribe to this kind of format especially for adaptations of successful books. Essentially the movie is a crime thriller which slowly draws you into the story setting the characters and situations carefully and rarely allows you to get ahead of the story. The two main leads are excellent and very different people, and while it’s harder to judge performances when your viewing with subtitles i think I’m right on this one. The story is very dark in the subject matter and there are some disturbing scenes in the movie but it doesn’t detract from what is a great thriller story with two interesting leads that have very different agendas and backgrounds but manage to work together on the case.
If you are looking for a flash, special effects all out action thriller than Men who Hate Women will disappoint, its a slower story but it’s also a great story that does have its action moments, and one of the more memorable movies i’ve seen this year, count me in for the sequel.
