The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Back in early 2010, the Swedish film of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” – original onscreen title “Men Who Hate Women” – was released in the United States. I loved the grisly Euro thriller about a disgraced journalist teaming with an emotionally scarred female hacker to solve a 40-year-old murder. Now the Americanized remake (re-adaptation?) arrives from director David Fincher, still set in Sweden, but with bigger names. Daniel Craig is the journalist, and Rooney Mara (“Social Network”) is Lisbeth, the hacker. This rock-solid take has a dark chilly mood to spare, and presents a more complex Lisbeth, a woman who has cut herself off from the world, calculating and scarily brilliant, but prone to still sadly eat Happy Meals. Mara makes the role her own, a bundle of disjoints and razor edges, silently raging. She rocks. Yes, it is disconcerting to see big-name actors traipse around in Swedish snow so soon after seeing other actors speak their own language in their own land, but Craig is oddly effective (and nerdy) as an everyman in deep turmoil. Scripter Steven Zallian smartly condenses the long post-climax. Still, check out the original, a true gut-puncher. 2011: A-

Gangs of New York (2002)

I’ve re-watched “Gangs of New York” several times recently, and still come to the same conclusion I felt in 2002: It’s a powder keg film at its opening with Daniel Day-Lewis and Liam Neeson swinging axes and blades as 1840s rival gang leaders in New York’s Five Points, the sector of race, religion and pride ran over. Bill “The Butcher” Cutting – that’s Day Lewis – stands unbowed as Neeson’s Priest falls dead. I was slack-jawed then and now at the onscreen carnage. Yet, the film’s remainder never balances or even gels, making for a fascinating disappointment from director Martin Scorsese. The story dissolves in an odd (and literal) telegraphed narration as the Priest’s grown son (Leonardo DiCaprio) seeks vengeance against Cutting. A climatic riot/gang fight/naval attack is so spastic, we require text to pinpoint what’s going on. Too much. Not enough. It’s a tremendous telling of democratic America’s terrible, blood-soaked birth that Tea Party folks refuse to believe. (They actually think this nation began with freedom for all and biblical values, and want to go back.) It’s just not a satisfying film, feeling sliced even at 160 minutes. Day-Lewis is volcano, spewing a violent code of “honor” shocking in its depravity. DiCaprio wilts in his presence. B-

A History of Violence (2005)

David Cronenberg returns to his seemingly favorite theme of fraternal rivalry in “A History of Violence.” Here, a small-town diner owner Tom (Viggo Mortensen) kills with scary precision two psychotic murderers – possibly father and son -- who mean harm. Tom, injured in the melee, becomes a national hero. TV news crews visit. So does a black car with a grisly-scarred face thug (Ed Harris, never creepier) in the backseat. Creepy Ed says Tom ain’t Tom, he’s Philly mob man Joey, and brother Richie (William Hurt) wants him back in -- irony alert -- The City of Brotherly Love. Shockingly violent, critics hailed this as some mirror of American values. That’s a bit too deep. This is about family, brothers and fathers and sons, and the cold stone fact that if one is bred in violence, he will never, ever, escape it. History always repeats itself. Where ever you are. The wife’s (Mario Bella) horror and then carnal desire of her violent hubby is raw, as is the son, who learns that a fist and a gun will get you further than a book and a joke. Fascinating throughout, the final silent scene is a beaut. A