Movie Review #27 Sherlock Holmes

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Sherlock Holmes (2009) Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law Directed by Guy Ritchie

Guy Ritchie takes a shot at an old English classic, tackling Sherlock Holmes. Ritchie really hasn’t given us anything good since Snatch (2000). In 2002 his film Swept Away with his then wife Madonna was awful (really awful), then he made Revolver in 2005 which was just kind of watchable, and most recently he made RockNRolla, which was solid but not great. He was given the keys to the Sherlock Holmes franchise and I think he knew what the most important element was in these stories…the relationship between Holmes and Watson, of course. He cast these two parts perfectly. The story lacks and the bad guy isn’t who we want it to be (needed a stronger bad guy out of the gate), but watching Downey Jr. and Law bicker back and forth is like watching 48 Hours (Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte) or Lethal Weapon (Danny Glover and Mel Gibson), a buddy cop film with two guys that just work together. Kudos to Ritchie for making an old story relevant again and hopefully with more films to come, he keeps it that way.

Holmes is based on the comic book version of the Detective, a little less hat and pipe, and a little more ass-kicking. It seems odd at first watching Sherlock Holmes and Watson scrapping up with the local criminals, but after a few minutes it’s so much fun that you forget about the old pipe-smoking guy and buy into the new and improved kind of obnoxious (in a good way) Detective. Holmes (played very well by Robert Downey Jr.) is of course partnered by his good friend Watson (played perfectly by Jude Law…one of his best performances). These two have a very odd relationship, which really is the driving vessel of the whole film. Holmes and Watson are working hard to solve a case that seems otherworldly, which is centered on the popular criminal Lord Blackwood and his cult like activity. Irene Adler (played well by Rachel McAdams) shows up to get in the way of things, but again the movie really is Watson and Holmes…nobody really cares about the main bad guy, and Adler. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this film, it is not a top ten of the year, but it is certainly a cool action packed romp. It is a buddy cop film that aims to please and I highly recommend it. See it in theaters!

(The Shawshank Scale 1-10) I’m generous lately with all my 7.0’s and above, but the quality of films has picked up in the year’s end, this one holds up its end of the deal (though it needs to make the bad guy better in the sequel). Sherlock Holmes is a 7.0 film that is good fun, the decision to see it should be…rather…elementary (sorry I couldn’t help myself).

Food For Thought: Avgolemono (egg lemon rice soup) look it up, make it, it’s awesome (honestly my favorite food)! Ok so Downey Jr. has a little film called Iron Man 2 coming out in the early summer (May), and Law has a creepy looking Sci-Fi pick called Repo Men coming out this year (they Repo organs?). McAdams is in a film I’m looking forward to, called Morning Glory, co-starring Harrison Ford (nice to see him back at work) about a struggling morning show. Ritchie has a mysterious film called Gamekeeper coming out this year, and they all presumably have the Sherlock Holmes sequel (which has been green-lighted)!