Over the last couple of weeks I have become slowly aware of an impending Sherlock Holmes film. There is as yet no release date that I am aware of. But principal photography has wrapped and it is expected this year.
Holmes is an iconic figure but not one that has yet had a definitive screen portrayal. Certainly Basil Rathbone cut the quintessential Holmesian figure in his string of serialized adventures in the thirties and forties. But those productions were slight and hardly worthy of the world's greatest detective.
The legend has been roundly deconstructed though, by the like of Billy Wilder (The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes) the Walt Disney company (The Great Mouse Detective), Barry Levinson (Young Sherlock Holmes) Gene Wilder (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother) and in the person of Michael Caine as Holmes as a figment of Watson's imagination in Without a Clue. But for all that, a straight and honest treatment of Holmes has yet to enter the culture and set up permanent digs.
This year however Hollywood is taking its shot. And even for an industry of overpaid under-informed bonobo monkeys with designer suits and botox leaks, this one should be a doozy.
I'll not quibble with the casting, because in all honesty Robert Downey Jr. is a good bet (there's a phrase no one's uttered since 1993) as Holmes. He's always been a gifted actor able to draw credibility and emotional resonance from even the most unlikely places. Plus he's got momentum coming off the twin successes of Iron Man and Tropic Thunder. No problems there.
Even the casting of, everyones-second-favorite-anything, Jude Law coming in as Watson smacks of level headed decision making.
What marks this as a vainglorious farce in the offing, a true Hollywood botch-up, is the choice of Guy Ritchie as director. That's right, the former Mr. Madonna, director of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch and most recently RocknRolla, a man who never met a few million bucks he couldn't turn into two hours of sub-Tarantino sadist kitsch.
I am speechless.
Look for jump cuts, torture scenes, dog fights, twitchy sadistic Russians, more than a few scenes in whore houses and plenty of time spent on Holmes's fondness for cocaine.
To paraphrase Holmes, "How can anyone build on such a quagmire?"
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Comments: 9
Good article :)
Do you think Jude Law secretly stews “I should be Holmes!!! That druggie has to fake his accent!!!”
Chaplin was actually the last time his acting talent was the only consideration for prducers looking to cast a role, with all his problems with the law and reputation as a difficult person to work with. I loved that movie and greatly admired his performance, and Hollywood has always been fairly ready to give him one shot after another, but it took a protracted clean steak and a couple of financial and critical successes for him to be top choice for something as high profile as this Holmes picture.
Alan,
Thanks for the friendly reception!
Yeah, given that they chose a slick and hacky director, Law would likely have been a more natural choice and I doubt that fact escapes him. But in my opinion he would make a poor Holmes, there was always an undercurrent of the misanthropic in Holmes that Law might struggle with not making seem like self pity. Ideally I would like to see someone like Clive Owen take the role with Christopher Nolan directing (or Curtis Hansen in top form)
Law definitely has an efette quality. But I think his range is a bit broader than his starring career has displayed. I often think of his utterly disturbing performance in Road to Perdition as a ghoulish crime scene photographer and wonder what else he could do given the right material.