FILM REVIEW: SHERLOCK HOLMES

Robert Downey Jr. is Guy Ritchie's kind of Sherlock Holmes.  

No Schlock, Sherlock

Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes is a bigger dog than the hound of the Baskervilles.

By Ed Rampell
 

You don’t need the scientific sleuth’s powers of perception to deduce that director Guy Ritchie’s Holmes mostly resembles Sir Conan Doyle’s creation in name only. The flick does have fleeting forensic references -- Sherlock was the original crime scene investigator, and Warner Bros. desperately seems to want to lure CSI fans to the scene of this cinematic crime to recoup its squandered $80 million. Ritchie’s high concept Holmes transforms the cerebral scrutinizer into an action hero -– long on mindless violence, stunts, special effects and CGI gimmickry. I’s short on character, atmospherics and imagination.

Not content to rip-off one creator of an immortal British law enforcer, Ritchie and the film's writers seem to have drawn inspiration from the novels of  Ian Fleming. In their schlock, Sherlock is more like a 19th century James Bond than Doyle’s private eye, and they promiscuously shoplift from 007’s oeuvre. Especially Goldfinger: Holmes’ brutish Dredger (Robert Maillet) recalls Bond’s fearsome foe, Oddjob, and the panic to prevent a WMD from detonating in London’s Parliament suggests the ticking atomic time bomb at Fort Knox.

But Ritchie is no Guy Hamilton (Goldfinger’s director), just as Robert Downey Jr. is to Sherlock what George Lazenby  (a forgettable onetime Bond) is to 007, while Jude Law is to Dr. Watson what Edsels are to autos. Compared to Doyle’s adventures Ritchie’s Holmes is what his laughable flop, the 2002 remake of Swept Away starring then-wife Madonna, is to Lina Wertmuller’s 1974 classic, Swept Away.

Indeed, there’s more charm, characterization, ambiance and mystery in any short story Doyle penned than in Ritchie’s overblown dud. Compounding matters, Holmes’ Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) collaborates with nefarious Professor Moriarty, “the Napoleon of crime.” 

According to Sherlock Holmes Society of Austin’s Sarah Ann Robertson, “Please. Irene Adler was not a criminal, did not consort with criminals and certainly was not in league with Moriarty.” Guy Marriott, President of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, adds: “No, Irene Adler (who appears in A Scandal in Bohemia) is a retired opera singer who had a liaison with the King of Bohemia, who seeks Holmes’ assistance to recover a photograph of the[m].  She’s not a criminal, or associated with criminals [or] Professor Moriarty.”

Holmes pits the shamus and his sidekick against a Victorian version of the “War on Terror,” battling Lord Blackwood’s (Mark Strong) Al-Qaeda-like cult, which practices human sacrifice and conspires to topple Britain’s government using IEDs, WMDs, etc. Fair enough -- Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, who portrayed Holmes and Watson in 14 films from 1939-1946, fought Nazis in WWII movies such as Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon. But the most egregiously offensive scene in Ritchie’s wretched excess is when Hebrew letters are shown during the occult secret society’s gathering. (This apparently has escaped the notice of other critics.)

Linking Jews to sinister scheming cabals that perpetrate blood sacrifice and world domination conspiracies is the vilest anti-Semitic stereotype perpetuated by The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which the Anti-Defamation League calls “a classic in paranoid, racist literature.” Its discredited lunacy has been propagated by hate mongers from Hitler to the Blackwood-like Osama Bin Laden. Through Madonna Ritchie was associated with Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), and it’s doubtful he deliberately slurred Jews. Plus, Warner Bros. led Hollywood’s struggle against Nazism. However, the fact that Hebrew is onscreen when Holmes’ fanatical conspirators meet reveals how grossly insensitive these filmmakers who, willy-nilly, take liberties with a popular fictional character. (At least Ritchie doesn’t call Sherlock “Shylock.”)

Had these no-talent hacks produced work with dramatis personae bearing monikers they’d concocted, I wouldn’t object (except to the anti-Semitism). But what’s particularly odious is Ritchie’s crew wrecking a well-established brand it did nothing to create. They’re deploying the same crowd pleasing formula Mel Gibson used in The Passion of the Christ: exploit preexisting brand names and add violence. Intriguingly, both films contain anti-Jewish references.