Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander. Music Box Films photos

Think of the movie version of The Girl Who Played With Fire as the Cliff’s Notes version of the late Stieg Larsson’s second novel.

But unlike the Cliff’s Notes guides that seldom get to the heart of a novel, this movie pretty much includes all you need to know about Larsson’s sprawling novel. The character nuances, the plot twists, and the vivid setting show up on film.

No, it doesn’t take the place of reading the novel.

But the movie will let those who have never read the books know why it seems as if everyone you see is carrying a Larsson novel. For those of us who read and loved the novels, this second film complements the books.

The Girl Who Played With Fire continues the story of journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) and the brilliant, goth girl hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace).

Blomkvist’s magazine, Millennium, is working with a young journalist and a criminologist on a story about the sex-trafficking trade in Sweden. Through their research, the two have discovered that the ring includes some of Sweden’s highest ranked politicians, cops and law makers.

The pair are murdered and a gun containing Lisbeth’s fingerprints is found. That same weapon is linked to a third death. Lisbeth becomes Sweden’s most wanted fugitive. The police convinced of her guilt because of her violent background that has been well documented by the courts.

Blomkvist is equally convinced of her innocence. Lizbeth may be violent, antisocial and hard to read. But, he knows that men who abuse women would be her target, not a journalist and criminologist working to expose sex traffickers. Although she dropped him from her life without reason and has refused all contact, Blomkvist remains loyal to Lizbeth.

Jan Bublanski (Johan Kylén) and Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist).

Separately, Blomkvist and Lizbeth work to prove her innocence and find the real killer.

The film moves briskly without the sometimes bloated scenes of the novel. While Larsson’s novel was, at times, sprawling, to say the least, the movie is a lean, tightly focused action film.

Many reviewers have commented on how the Larsson’s first novel, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, worked as a locked room mystery; this section as a private detective novel and the third, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, as a spy thriller.

The movie certainly concentrates on The Girl Who Played With Fire’s private detective elements.

It is not necessary to have read the novel to follow the film. The friend who accompanied me had not read any of the novels – though she is now starting on the first – and was able to follow the story.

Although there are a couple of variations from the novel – and NO spoilers here – the movie is faithful to the story.

What’s left out of the movie is what should have have been left out of the book. The long opening that takes place in the Caribbean here is a scene of Lizbeth packing with the gorgeous Atlantic Ocean in the background. Instead of a long shopping trip, we just see Lizbeth putting together a chair from Ikea. And there was no way to work in her fascination with a mathematician. A few other plot points also missing from the film were wise choices by the filmmakers.

Noomi Rapace continues to enthrall as Lisbeth, showing every bit of the hacker’s strength, vulnerability, intelligence, naivite, rage, her moral fiber and a chameleon’s ability to adapt. Lizbeth is a survivor and, as she did in the first movie, Rapace understands this character’s complexity.

Michael Nyqvist is Rapace’s equal. His quest for the truth is unwavering as are his compassion and kindness. His hurt and confusion after Lisbeth abandoned him is palpable, but it will not stop him from helping her. (Another female reviewer and I were talking after and we both agreed that for some reason Michael Nyqvist is much sexier in a rugged way in this movie than in the first. And, no, that photo at left doesn’t do him justice.)

The Girl Who Played With Fire movie is a perfect complement to the novels. Now, I’m looking forward to the third movie, which is scheduled to be released later this year.

The Girl Who Played With Fire: Rated R; 129 minutes. Subtitles. It begins a wide release around the country on July 9.

Jim Thompson’s novels do not come easily to the screen.

This hard-boiled author, whose career began in 1942 and lasted through the early 1970s, had a noir vision that often bleak. Yet there was certain poetry in the way he could look into a person’s soul and see nothing but darkness.

Casey Affleck in The Killer Inside Me. IFC Films photo

 The most successful filmings of his novels have been by Europeans, as the New York Times recently pointed out. British director Stephen Frears gave us the excellent The Grifters in 1990 while Frenchman Bertrand Tavernier’s 1981 film Coup de Torchon was an adaptation of Thompson’s novel Pop. 1280. According to the same Times article, Coup de Torchon is considered the best adaptation of any Thompson movie. Even Donald Westlake who wrote the screenplay for The Grifters liked it best.

  The Getaway, both Steve McQueen’s 1972 version and the 1994 one with Alec Baldwin, is, admittedly a guilty pleasure, though not as faithful to the book. Both movies ended with Doc and Carol McCoy off to Mexico with a satchel of cash; in the novel, they find that money doesn’t buy them happiness, to say the least.

    The latest tackling of Thompson comes from British director Michael Winterbottom whose The Killer Inside Me is a fascinating and quite flawed version of Thompson’s 1952 novel. It is as faithful as it can be to Thompson’s work, and that is one of its high points as well as one of its problems. 
  
   Winterbottom delivers a darker than noir journey into hell via the psyche of a serial killer that is riveting. But the scenes of women being battered are cringingly graphic. Admittedly, these scenes aren’t extensive, but they are intense.

  In The Killer Inside Me, Casey Affleck portrays Lou Ford, a small town deputy sheriff whose cherry persona masks his cruelty, as he becomes a serial killer. At 29, Ford seems to have a good life. The son of the deceased beloved doctor of Center City, Texas, he is an up and comer in the sheriff’s department and he is engaged to one of the town’s “good girls,” Amy (Kate Hudson).

 Ford’s orders to run out of town Joyce Lakeland (Jessica Alba), a prostitute who has set up shop on the outskirts of town. Instead, Joyce unleashes Ford’s sadistic side that he had tried to keep under wraps and the two begin an intense sadomasochistic affair. The two hatch a scheme to extort money from Chester Conway, the local construction mogul (the brilliant Ned Beatty), whose dim son is in love with Joyce. To say the plan goes wrong is an understatement.

 Affleck has proved his acting chops – and ability to immerse himself in his roles, beginning with one of his first roles as the high-school hit man who just wanted his CD’s in To Die For to The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Gone Baby Gone.
  
   In The Killer Inside Me, Affleck is mesmerizing. He is charming and menacing, cocky and fearful, cold and calculating yet warm and affectionate. Affleck makes The Killer Inside Me rise above some of its unsavory aspects. Whenever he is onscreen, you cannot watch anyone else. When Affleck talks about how in a small town “everyone thinks they know who you are,” there’s no doubt what he means.

 Beatty embodies the vengeful businessman used to having his own way – and used to enjoying his revenge. Simon Baker (The Mentalist) does the most with the throwaway role of district attorney Howard Hendricks who sees through Ford’s charade. Elias Koteas, a character actor who’s often mistaken for Robert De Niro, is superb as a union leader and Bill Pullman shines as a self-taught bombastic lawyer.

Kate Hudson, Casey Affleck

However, it’s the women who are pivotal to The Killer Inside Me who are miscast. Without her blonde locks, Hudson seems more brassy and gutsy as a brunette and gives her most nuanced performance since Almost Famous. Still, Hudson falls short. Hudson’s Amy has to decide if her private humiliation is worth the price to keep Ford’s interest.

Alba is too pretty, too passive and too young looking to be a hard-bitten prostitute. When she suggests the extortion scheme, it sounds as if she wants to go shopping or take in a movie. While the 1976 version of The Killer Inside Me with Stacy Keach was a mess, Susan Tyrrell was a better Joyce. Alba lacks the dangerous sexuality that Joyce has. This role needs a Megan Fox, but a Megan Fox who can act.

But Ford’s brutal battering of Joyce and Amy are unwatchable and vile.  These intense violent scenes of the two women being brutalized are cringingly graphic. Never mind that these scenes are actually quite brief; the unflinching rawness is disturbing and sickening. Although these scenes are not as bloody or explicit as the violence in many films, the image of women passively accepting a ferocious beating is unwatchable. Sex scenes also are quite intense though very little nudity is shown, except in some old black and white photos.

The violence also was upsetting to Jessica Alba, who reportedly walked out of the screening at the Sundance Film Festival.

Flashbacks to Ford’s childhood and the relationship with his mother, who was battered by Ford’s dad, are confusing. 

Cinematography is powerful. You can almost taste the dust in the air and the dead-end future that Ford sees for himself 

Affleck and Winterbottom perfectly capture small-town 1950s ennui. But sometimes that’s not enough.

The Killer Inside Me is now in wide release and also is available On Demand. Rated R: The film contains graphic violence, gore, sexual situations, nudity, child abuse, strong language and heavy drinking. 109 minutes.

IFC Films

  The first time viewers really see Noomi Rapace playing Lisbeth Salander in the film version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, she has her back to the camera in what looks like a conservative board room.

Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Music Box Films photo

  Even before she faces the camera, Rapace looks larger than life – swaddled in her punk, black clothing, chains and spikes draped here and there, impossibly high platform boots. Until then, we’ve only seen glimpses of Rapace – walking toward the subway, peering out at the world from her hoodie, or melding into a crowd.

  But from the moment turns around, looking like a combination of Marilyn Manson and a Dracula groupie to face her suit-and-tie boss and her client, Rapace owns the movie based on the late Stieg Larsson’s first novel.

   Swedish actress Rapace is nothing short of enthralling, showing with every movement all of computer hacker Lisbeth Salander’s strength, vulnerability, intelligence, naivite, rage, her moral fiber and a chameleon’s ability to adapt.

She is an avenging angel and an endearing young woman, at ease behind a computer, socially  inept with people. Lisbeth is, above all, a survivor and Rapace understands this part of her personality.

Rapace is the embodiment of Lisbeth – her dark eyes flashing, her black hair falling into her face and her noir punk outfit serving as armor against the world.

    Danish director Niels Arden Oplev has done the near impossible – taken a brilliant, yet flabby novel, pared it down to a tight, brisk-paced 152 minutes and at the same time captures every nuance and spirit of Larsson’s first novel in his trilogy. To give the viewer a bit of background about Lisbeth and how she became who she is, Oplev uses brief snippets from Larsson’s other two novels, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, both of which Oplev already has filmed.

  The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, with Swedish subtitles, is just now making its U.S. debut, with staggered openings in a variety of cities around the country.

   As exciting as Rapace is, she is well matched by the commanding performance by Michael Nyqvist as the disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist. It’s an exciting pairing that keeps The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo on track.

  Magazine publisher Blomkvist has just unfairly lost a libel case in which he accused a wealthy businessman of, among other things, gun-running and numerous  felonies. Before he serves his three-month sentence, Blomkvist is hired by aging industrialist Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube) to find out what happened to his favorite niece, Harriet, who vanished from the family compound when she was 16 years old, more than 40 years before.

Vanger knows that Blomkvist’s dogged reporting skills will serve him well, but he warns the journalist that the Vangers are a nasty family capable of just about anything.

   Blomkvist teams up with Lisbeth Salander and the two of them fnd what the face of evil looks like.
  The film, like the novel, combines the locked-room mystery – how could Harriet have disappeared from the remote, closed-off family island – with  a private detective mystery.

   An underlying theme of Larsson’s novels and the film is the abuse of women and Oplev handles this with aplomb. The movie is at times gritty and violent but never gratuitous.

  The cinematography is breathtaking. Stockholm looks like a glistening magical city rising out of the landscape, a Disney-Worldesque place, yet at the same time gritty and forboding. It looks perpetually cold.

  The next two films in the triology have already been released in Europe; here’s hoping we can see them soon in America and stop watching the clips on YouTube.
    The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: Unrated; 152 minutes. Directed by Niels Arden Oplev. With Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace. In Swedish with English subtitles.
  Ratings note: The film contains graphic violence, sexual situations, nudity and strong language.