Courtesy / Music Box Films Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist star in ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ as a detective team set on solving a decades-old disappearance.

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is an entertaining crime thriller based on a bestselling novel, with an engrossing plot built around a 40-year-old mystery, computer hacking and a wealthy family with a Nazi past.

The book is an international bestseller, so it was inevitable that someone would make this intriguing mystery into a movie. However, the Swedes beat Hollywood to it, so be prepared to read subtitles. Nonetheless, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” now playing at Plaza Frontenac, is well worth the extra effort.

There is a bit of “La Femme Nikita” and gender role-reversal in this offbeat crime tale, pairing tattooed computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (the striking Noomi Rapace), a researcher with a shady past working for a private security company, with Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), a journalist framed in a libel case against a powerful businessman.

With six months of freedom before he starts serving his sentence, Blomkvist is hired by an elderly, wealthy Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube), to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Vanger’s 16-year-old niece Harriet (Ewa Frohling) in 1966.

Blomkvist got the job based on the recommendation of Vanger’s friend Dirche Frode (Ingvar Hirdwall). Frode was impressed with the computer researcher’s findings on him when the journalist’s employer explored a legal appeal.

Blomkvist begins his work aided by local policeman Gustav Morell (Bjorn Granath), but eventually, Salander is brought into the investigation.

Not simple stuff, but the story unfolds in a clear style that allows the viewer to follow every twist and revelation. The engrossing plot is supported by a cast of fascinating characters. The wealthy Vanger family share controlling interest in a powerful international business. But the Vangers are no happy extended family. There are secrets, tragic deaths, long-running feuds and links to a Nazi past, and many family members are suspects.

Forays into these personal stories support the story rather than slow down its pace. Sometimes we think we know where the mystery is leading, only to have new information spin the characters down a new path.

The acting is very good, with Noomi Rapace crafting a remarkable character in the brilliant, unconventional computer hacker. Her scenes with a sleazy probation officer are not to be missed. The working relationship and tentative bond between the more conventional journalist and the aloof computer hacker grows organically and is wholly convincing. Each character is fully rounded and multi-layered.

This is the kind of well-crafted, edge-of-the-seat storytelling seen too frequently in any film now. Intrigue, mystery and complex personalities drive this relentless tale of twists and layers of secrets.

Scenes are packed with dramatic tension and some are raw, adult stuff, although there is always an unexpected flourish or twist to keep us off balance. It all adds up to a great mystery thriller, but of the kind more about information than gun-play and explosions.

Some audience members who would rush to see a movie like this if it were American-made will snub this top-notch thriller because it has subtitles.

An American version is also in the works. If the past is any indicator, the remake will not be as good, but no reading will be required. B+ –Cate Marquis