Late review - THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (2011)

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO is a perfectly well made movie that has absolutely no reason to exist.  It adds nothing to the Swedish original, despite being directed by the spiky, visually astute director David Fincher (THE SOCIAL NETWORK).  It feels like just another faithful retelling of Stieg Larsson's best-selling thriller (whose plot I won't bother to recount), albeit with a bigger budget and better production values.  Fincher's fingerprints were too subtly felt.  Let's be honest, if all we'd been given were a music video for Karen O singing Trent Resznor and Atticus Ross' reworking of The Immigrant Song with the wicked cool opening credits, we'd have gone home as happy as if we'd sat through the entire three hour movie. 

If I wanted to get more granular I'd point out the following - two positives and two negative.  I prefer Rooney Mara's Lisbeth Salander to Noomi Rapace, not because there was anything wrong with Rapace's performance, but because Rapace feels more like a woman, and Mara really does look like a girl (although I concede that in the novel she's 23).  That makes her victimisation worse, her toughness more impressive, her being a ward of the state more credible.  Second, I really liked Jeff Cronenweth's digital lensing using the Red One.

The first negative is a bugbear I have with many English language movies set in a non-English speaking countries.  Simply put, I want the director to decide what he wants to do with the accent in the film and then stick to it consistently.  I don't care if the Yanks and Brits are speaking English with some undefined mittel-europische accent, or some approximation at it, but I don't want half doing straight English and half doing cod-Swedish.   There's nothing that draws me out of a scene more than seeing Daniel Craig speaking straight English to Rooney Mara trying to do a Swedish accent complete with "hey hey"s and whatnot.

My second bugbear is the perfunctory manner in which the relationship between Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist is handled in the remake. In the original movie, the genuine chemistry between Michael Nyqvist and Rapace really did centre the film and make us hungry for the next movie.  But in Fincher's take it's all too superficial, and betrays what's meant to be a deeply emotional moment at the end of the flick.  In fact, the movie has a wider problem, which is the very dull, slightly bizarre (plot points changed for no real reason) ending, that drags on for 30 minutes.

Overall, a pretty banal retelling once the opening credits are done. Looks like Fincher did it for the paycheck and directed with a very light hand.

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO is on release in the UK, USA, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Ireland, Israel and Slovenia. It is released on January 6th in Hong Kong, Russia, Singapore, Bulgaria, Estonia, India and Australia. It is released on January 12th in Australia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Poland, Spain and Turkey. It is released on January 19th in Belgium, France, Hungary, the Netherlands and Portugal. It opens on January 27th in Brazil; on February 3rd in Italy and later in February in Japan.

Rooney Mara won Best Breakthrough Performer, tied with Felicity Jones for LIKE CRAZY, at the National Board of Review awards 2011.

THE TOURIST - in the words of the great Ian Dury, what a waste

THE TOURIST is that dirty of dirtiest of Hollywood words, a "troubled" film. This is Hollywood code for a project that has become toxic; stuck in pre-production; riddled with "creative differences"; lead actors dropping out; directors hired, fired, and hired again; and writing credits expanded by the desperate attempts of over-paid script-doctors to hammer some shape and vision back into the bulbous mess. When the revolving doors at GK Films finally stopped turning, many a talented film-maker was trapped between the glass. But to no avail. The resulting film is absolutely without merit (which has bizarrely not precluded it from winning three Golden Globe nominations, once again proving how utterly without merit are Hollywood awards).

A gaunt but Prada-impeccable Angelina Jolie stars as mysterious British woman who seduces a provincial dolt (Johnny Depp) in order to throw Interpol off the scent of her real on-the-lam boyfriend, Alexander. They meet-cute on a high-speed train from Paris to Venice and then spend a few days running round Venice being harassed by aforementioned policemen, not to mention the Russian-wannabe goon that Alexander stole money from. And all the while, what we're really meant to care about is whether Angie really loves Johnny or Alex or what.

What this movie basically wants to be is a classic, beautifully-dressed, elegantly-romantic, quivering-under-the-surface sexy classic romantic-thriller along the lines of CHARADE or TO CATCH A THIEF. 

Problems: 1) Angelina Jolie phones it in as Eloise, doing little more than look arrogantly beautiful and over-dressed. 2) Johnny Depp cannot look like a provincial schlub if he tries. He also can't do physical slapstick comedy, and yes, I AM including Pirates of the Caribbean in that. 3) The police come off as complete idiots. That means there is NO dramatic tension. It's also a waste of Paul Bettany's acting talent. 4) The vengeful mafiosi that Alexander stole from is also completely OTT. Well, I know that's the point of casting Steven Berkoff. But please, this is just hokum. 5) I got the plot twist about an hour before the end of the flick. 6) It's really irritating how the Danieli keeps turning into the Gritti Palace 7) It's quite astonishing how DP John Searle has managed to photograph Venice to look ugly. 8) It's even more annoying that the director and screenwriters don't know what sort of tone they are going for - tense thriller with real threat and violence or physical comedy or whimsical romance? Is this CHARADE or is it RUN LOLA RUN? Or is it just a colossal waste of time?

Let's hope poor Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's reputation survives directing this fiasco, although god only knows why he went from art-house hit THE LIVES OF OTHERS to this confection. I guess Jolie and Depp's careers are fire-proof. Do yourself a favour and watch the Sophie Marceau-Yvan Attal French original, ANTHONY ZIMMER, instead.

THE TOURIST is on release in the UK, US, Egypt, Kuwait, the UAW, Bahrain, Canada, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar and Turkey. It opens this weekend in Belgium, France, Germany and Italy. It opens the following week in New Zealand, Australia, Hungary, Indonesia, Malaysia, Serbia and Singapore. It opens on January 6th in Russia, Sweden, Portugal, Slovenia, Estonia and Iceland. It opens on January 13th in Poland, the Netherlands and Slovakia. It opens on January 21st in Brazil and Finland. It opens on January 27th in Greece and Venezuela and then in Japan on March 11th.

London Film Fest Day 4 - 44 INCH CHEST

44 INCH CHEST is the debut feature from Malcolm Venville and written by the people behind the superb British gangster thriller SEXY BEAST. SEXY BEAST was not only magnificently profane and visually stunning but it took Sir Ben "Gandhi" Kingsley and presented him as possibly the most scary gangster this side of the Thames. Any script that could allow such a transformation was worthy of praise. 44 INCH CHEST is transformative, but not in such a powerful or compelling a manner. It starts off in the comfort zone of British gangster movies. We open with a plus suburban home wrecked in a vicious fight, and Ray Winstone's character, Colin Diamond, lying on the floor looking dazed. We then watch four mangy-looking East End gangsters, played by four outstanding British actors (John Hurt, Ian McShane, Tom Wilkinson, Stephen Dillane), abduct a French waiter and gather in a vacant house. There friend Colin has been cuckolded and they, as good friends, are going to facilitate him exacting revenge on the fucker locked in the cupboard and the cheating wife. The twist in the tale is that Colin Diamond, East End gangster that he is, really loves his wife, and knows that if he kills her lover, it'll be over between them for good. What then follows is a slow burn psychological thriller, and the lads wait for Colin to beat up Loverboy, and Colin builds up the stomach to either do that or, worse still, tell his mates that he's setting him free.

The movie looks great - all grimy, discoloured yellows and browns. John Hurt puts in a bravura performance as Old Man Peanut - the meanest of the gangsters - but McShane, Dillane and Wilkinson are fine too. There's also a lovely little cameo of Steven Berkoff losing a packet at, what happens to be, the casino I frequent in Mayfair. The script is taught and full of some beautifully inventive swearing. I really admire screen-writers Louis Mellis and David Scinto for trying to explore the pyschological workings of Colin Diamond. Problem is, as the movie progresses, I found myself becoming as frustrated as the lads waiting for Colin to get on with it. Maybe I'd been mis-sold. Maybe I'd been misled by the momentum of the early scenes. But, in the end, despite the solid gold cast and script, this movie didn't really work for me.

44 INCH CHEST is already on release in Australia. It opens in January 2010 in New Zealand and the UK.