Sherlock Holmes

(Guy Ritchie, 2009)

There's been a lot of talk about just how much director Guy Ritchie has altered the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes for the sake of pleasing modern audiences. Granted, the character isn't entirely true to his literary roots, but then that's been the case with a lot of his cinematic incarnations. This is not your run-of-the-mill Sherlock Holmes film—in fact, one might even argue it isn't a Sherlock Holmes film at all—but it is an entertaining movie all together.

Robert Downey Jr. plays a convincing Sherlock. The movie has Sherlock trying to catch the sinister Lord Blackwood (played by Mark Strong) from destroying England and quite possibly the world. His famous sidekick, Dr. Watson, (played by Jude Law) completed the much-loved chemistry of the two most famous detectives of all time.

Ritchie is best known for his convoluted gangster films—Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Rocknrolla—which have a way of twisting until near the end of the film, when Ritchie explains everything in entertaining detail. His overactive style may be a bit much for a Holmes story, but a quick consideration of his storytelling tendencies reveals why he was a respectable choice for this film. For me, one of the great pleasures of the Holmes stories has always been that moment towards the end in which Holmes cheerfully explains how he came to his spot-on conclusion. Ritchie knows how supremely satisfying such moments can be, twisting the plot tighter and tighter until finally allowing it to unravel, spilling all of its secrets in the form of a patented Holmes monologue.

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