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Robert Downey Jnr and Jude Law made a great odd couple in Sherlock Holmes |
Director: Guy Richie
Cast: Robert Downey Jnr (Sherlock Holmes), Jude Law (Dr John
Watson), Rachel McAdams (Irene Adler), Mark Strong (Lord Henry Blackwood),
Kelly Reilly (Mary Morstan), Eddie Marsan (Inspector Lestrade), Hans Matherson
(Lord Coward), James Fox (Sir Thomas Rotheram), Geraldine James (Mrs Hudson),
William Houston (Constable Clark), William Hope (Ambassador Standish)
I don’t think there has been a single character brought to
the screen more often than Sherlock Holmes. Sure there are certain tent-pole
performances (Rathbone, Brett, Cumberbatch) that people automatically think of
when you say “Sherlock Holmes”, but there are hundreds of others. It’s a
character that survives constant re-imagination. In fact, you could argue it’s
pretty much vital to bring something of your own to the table when putting
together a Sherlock Holmes dramatisation. It’s what made Sherlock so successful. And it’s something that works very well
here.
Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jnr) is part Bohemian artist,
part mad scientist, part kickboxer. The sort of guy who can think so far ahead
he can plan out an entire fight in his mind before it even begins. He’s
partnered up with determined, smart, handy-with-a-sword Dr Watson (Jude Law).
With Watson preparing to move out of 221B to marry Mary Morstan (Kelly Reilly),
they take on their last case: defeating creepy Dracula-lite Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), who claims to have
returned from the dead and wants to take over the British Empire. Along the way
they are helped (or hindered) by the mysterious Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) an
old flame of Holmes’.
Guy Ritchie’s rollicking adventure is actually a huge amount
of fun that, underneath the crashes and bangs, actually has a really strong
respect for the original stories (the film is littered with references and
quotes from the originals, none of which feel shoe-horned in except maybe
Rachel McAdams’ Irene Adler, perhaps because the producers felt Holmes needed a
love interest to stop any worries that he might be a bit too much in love with
Watson). Ritchie has crafted a Holmes-Watson relationship that repositions them
as a sort of odd-couple surrogate brothers, a marriage of equals (and make no
mistake, a marriage is basically what this Holmes and Watson have). It’s big
and silly, but then so were the original stories (The Creeping Man anyone?).
Ritchie is a film-maker it’s easy to find faintly annoying,
with his faux-geezer attitudes, his bizarre philosophical views and his love of
the poor-taste gag. But on this film he’s basically a director-for-hire rather
than putting his own story together and, you know what, putting this director
into a studio strait-jacket is actually pretty good. It smacks some disciple on
him, makes him drop his indulgent and poor-taste jokes and instead brings his
strengths as a director – his sense of pace, his eye for a witty image, his
rollicking sense of fun – to the fore. That’s probably why this is his most
enjoyable and best film.
It’s a film that mainly works because Downey Jnr and Law
make a terrific pairing as Holmes and Watson. They have great chemistry, they
spark off each other extremely well as performers and they really give the
sense of two life-long devoted friends. Both actors are very good here. The
film hits these notes of male friendship extremely well – a mixture of mocking
and abuse, mixed with devotion and loyalty. The film gets the balance of these
things exactly right: from debates to fights, you really get a sense that these
two are honorary brothers, almost a bickering old married couple.
In fact, the whole film revolves quietly around this relationship
coming under threat (as Holmes sees it) of Watson leaving Holmes to get married
– although, nicely, the film makes clear his fears of Mary are completely
unfounded. Part of the dual engine of the film is Holmes continuing to tempt
Watson into getting more and more involved with his cases, because he doesn’t
want to lose his friend. It’s actually quite sweet. As are the protective
feelings both have for the other: Watson knows Holmes puts himself at
ridiculous risks, in turn Holmes shows a gentle worry for Watson’s gambling
addiction (a popular Sherlockian society interpolation from references in the
story).
All this warm, brotherly stuff from two excellent performers
is built into a dramatic, thrillingly shot, series of action and detection
scenes. The film’s big gimmick is Holmes’ ability to use his analytical
abilities to accurately predict the outcome of fights (which the film
communicates with slow motion and forensic narration by Downey Jnr, before
staging the entire fight again at real time). It’s actually a fairly neat way
of turning his deductive abilities into a visual language. Alongside this,
plenty of this great fun – exciting or, as in Holmes’ battle with a 7ft giant,
funny. All hugely entertaining.
Placing the focus on this relationship and the action does
mean that the mystery elements of the plot get a bit short-changed. The story
is a rather silly series of near-Dracula
style high-Gothic mysteries that may or may not be real (all these occult
references more than echo The Young
Sherlock Holmes!). There isn’t much in the way of the small intricate
puzzles of the early stories here – but then plenty of the later ones became
increasingly hyper-real Gothic stories, so I guess that is fine. Mark Strong
does a decent job as the villainous Blackwood, using his sinister looks and
imperious voice extremely well.
It also looks wonderful – the photography and set design is
marvellous – and the score by Hans Zimmer must be one of his best ever, a
sprightly mix of Irish music, Westerns and Music Hall. Ritchie directs it with
a wonderfully, tongue-in-cheek, entertaining sprightliness, like Sherlock Holmes meets Indiana Jones. Holmes more than survives
his re-imagination as an action superhero – and in fact he brings across a lot
of the tone and character of the original book along with him. A terrific
entertainment and a more than worthy entry to the Holmes movie cannon.
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