Based onStieg Larsson’s second novel, The GirlWhoPlayed With Fire continuesthe story with the same main characters plus a new set of villains. Lisbeth isa memorable creationa bisexual, kickboxing, motorcycle riding, black leatherand nose-ring wearing, punk rocking, computer hacking genius. Her teenage stintin an abusive mental hospital only sharpened her angry edge. Lisbeth is especiallybitter over men abusing women, and is willing to be the avenging dark angel.How ironic that the first two murders pinned on her are of a team of reportersinvestigating a ring of Russian prostitutes sanctioned by corrupt Swedish cops,judges and prosecutors. The whole thing stinks, and Lisbeth’s sometimes friend,investigative reporter Mikael Blomkvist, knows it.
Larsson’sstories, which have attracted an international audience, pull the spirit ofAmerican 1930s hard-boiled fiction and ’40s film noir into a 21st-centuryScandinavian setting. Corruption hides under every pleasant fa%uFFFDade and monstersroam the corridors in the semblance of men. Unlike the previous installment,director Daniel Alfredson shot The GirlWho Played With Fire as a two-part TV mini-series. Perhaps this resulted inmore car chases and villains a little larger than life. But Alfredson alsobrings a painterly eye for the twilight colors of the Baltic to his efficientlytold story, along with excellent cross-editing between scenes and a superbsense for incorporating the Internet into cinema. The acting is convincing,especially Noomi Rapace as the wiry Lisbeth, a woman emotionally damaged by theevil she encountered in childhood yet groping in the darkness toward humanempathy.
The GirlWho Played With Fire is showing at theDowner Theatre.
