Film review: Sherlock Holmes

BY GRAEME TUCKETT

I worried about this film. In fact, I actually despaired of this film.

How the hell could anybody have thought that Guy Ritchie - a man who has made only one good film in his life, and has been trying to repeat the success ever since - would be an able match for one of the most beloved, and complex, literary creations of all time?

But, I was wrong, again. It turns out Ritchie is a huge Holmes fan. As a boy Ritchie would lie awake at boarding school listening to radio adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous creation.

And so Ritchie knew that Holmes had been pretty badly served by film-makers in the past, and that a rendering of Holmes that stuck closely to what Doyle actually wrote could perhaps be the guts of a rip- roaringly good movie.

So, forget about the pompous gimlet-eyed tosspot that has graced the silver screen since Basil Rathbone first got it wrong in 1939.

Holmes on the page was a drug user, a talented street fighter, an accomplished lock pick and house burglar, a liar - when it suited him - and an occasional ladies man.

Today we would probably call him anti-social, manic-depressive and mildly narcissistic.

When he's done right, Holmes is the prototype for every flawed human genius who ever decided to put on a silly hat - not a deerstalker, Doyle never mentions one in all of the stories or novels - and go "fight crime". He is, in fact, the original Dark Knight, circa 1890.

And Ritchie, bless him, has made a film that understands that. There are a few references to some of Doyle's original stories, but the script, bravely, tells a new tale.

The film finds Holmes mid-career. Watson is about to marry and move out of the rooms in Baker St.

Holmes is falling apart, waiting anxiously for a new case worthy of that restless brain.

And then, an English lord, convicted of murder, apparently rises from the grave, and it's all on for young and old. As Holmes, Downey Jr is just about perfect. There is an anarchic quality to Holmes that has never made it to the screen before, and Downey Jr has it in spades.

This Holmes is a lot rougher around the edges than Doyle would have liked, but he works.

Jude Law plays Watson as he is written, a doggedly loyal and utterly dependable ex-military man, occasionally despairing of Holmes' state of mind.

Rachel McAdams makes a fine Irene Adler - the one woman whom Holmes cannot get out of his head. Mark Strong is a worthy villain.

There is a fair whack more running around and getting into scrapes than the average Holmes adventure contained, but Sherlock Holmes has to work with a modern teen audience, and I'm happy that Holmes' essential intelligence is allowed to shine through the many action sequences.

My Dad, before the whisky finally washed him away, could quote you Arthur Conan Doyle chapter and verse. I think he would have liked this Sherlock Holmes very much indeed. And right now, that's good enough for me.

Sherlock Holmes
Director: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong
Rated: M
Time: 134 minutes
Trailer: Flicks.co.nz

* What did you think of Sherlock Holmes? Post your comments below.

- © Fairfax NZ News