Review: The Girl Who Played With Fire (15) (From This Is Lancashire)

Review: The Girl Who Played With Fire (15)

2:48pm Friday 27th August 2010 in

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Running time: 129 mins. Starring: Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace, Lena Endre, Peter Andersson, Georgi Staykov, Micke Spreitz, Johan Kylen, Hans-Christian Thulin. Director: Daniel Alfredson.

The late Stieg Larsson’s best-selling Millennium trilogy, which began with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, continues with this gritty descent into the sickening world of sex trafficking.

Set one year after the events of the first film, The Girl Who Played With Fire is another lean, muscular thriller that pulls no punches in its depictions of the violence and cruelty meted out to the morally conflicted characters.

Audiences who teetered on the edge of their seats in the opening chapter will be just as enthralled by Daniel Alfredson’s film that holds us in a vice-like grip from the opening nightmare sequence to the heart-stopping finale.

Crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Nyqvist) has not heard from computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rapace) for a year.

He has ploughed his energy into Millennium magazine, edited by Erika Berger (Endre), who is also his on-off lover, and together they are working on an explosive story about a sex trafficking ring with gossamer-thin ties to the upper echelons of power.

Days before publication, young writer Dag Svensson (Thulin) and his girlfriend Mia, who brought the story to Millennium, are slain and the murder weapon is tracked back to corrupt lawyer Nils Bjurman (Andersson), who is Lisbeth’s guardian. When police inspect the gun, they discover Lisbeth’s fingerprints.

Inspector Jan Bublanski (Kylen) issues an alert for the hacker’s arrest.

However, Mikael refuses to believe that Lisbeth is capable of such an atrocity and he clashes with the cop.

“I will find evidence, I will find the killer,” rages the journalist, “and I will write an article that the police will find damn uncomfortable.”

Meanwhile, Lisbeth hunts down Alexander Zalachenko (Staykov), the elusive figure at the centre of the trafficking ring, and his hulking henchman, Ronald Niedermann (Spreitz).

Alfredson’s film is every bit as dark, brooding and unsettling as its predecessor, with scenes of gruesome and graphic violence that are never gratuitous.

The director doesn’t waste a single frame.