Victor (Farrell) is a new member of a gang led by Alphonse (Howard), a menacing kingpin with a large criminal empire beneath him. Beatrice (Rapace) lives in an apartment that looks onto Victor’s, and they cautiously enter into a relationship for which each has their own agenda.

Oplev was the director of the original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (and hence the only good entry in the original Swedish trilogy), and he has recruited his Lisbeth Salander in his debut American feature. This is a movie that may confuse in the first half hour, but gradually the motivations of the two main characters emerge and everything makes sense. The two central actors do alright, but the story becomes much more interesting when some of the supporting cast occupy the screen – Terrence Howard plays the classic Mob boss well, and F. Murray Abraham is engaging in his two or three scenes (as one of the characters who you don’t quite figure out until near the end), but the classic French Actress Isabelle Huppert is wasted in a role that any jobbing actress could have played.

Don’t be misled by the generic title of this film, because it is a tightly scripted, action filled revenge plot that is well worth seeing on the big screen.