Sherlock Holmes (Guy Ritchie 2009)

Since I became Head of Media, Culture and Language at Roehampton University I haven't had much time to watch film - something that I am missing hugely. I also feel very out of touch with what is going on in the world of film (my reading of the relevant publications has become cursory rather than detailed) - to the extent that watching Sherlock Holmes I wasn't even conscious of who had directed it until the final credits; that said the name immediately made sense of the feel and tone of the film, which carries the mark of Madonna's ex-husband, Guy Ritchie. Mixing the London locations and mockney milieu of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) with the bare knuckle boxing of Snatch (2000), although thankfully not the god-awful Irish accents, Sherlock Holmes gives us a much less effete version of Holmes than in many of the previous filmic and televisual incarnations. Robert Downey Jr.'s star persona certainly connotes the appropriate degree of drug dabbling required in most versions of Holmes' detection methodology and we gain insight into Sherlock's powers of logical reasoning via a series of flash-forwards that explain the fast-paced action that follows.
It is interesting watching this cinematic version of Conan Doyle's creation after having seen the BBC's version, Sherlock, scripted by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss and starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. Sherlock was a surprise hit for the BBC and much like Ritchie's film owes much of its success to the casting of Holmes and Dr Watson (played by Jude Law in the Hollywood film). The BBC chose to transplant Holmes to a contemporary London, which is key to its appeal, I think. We see the characters, familiar to so many of us, operating comfortably in a post-CSI TV universe, in contemporary locations but using the safe and certain logic of Holmesian deduction, an anchor of certainty in a crisis ridden credit-crunch universe. While the BBC version incorporates action into an updated remaking of Sherlock Holmes, the Hollywood film is, as one might expect, an action movie built around the premise of Holmes. What is surprising is how enjoyable the US film actually is. While set in period, it incorporates aspects of steampunk into its exploration of London during what appear to be the 1880s - one of the film's more powerful (CGI) images and scene of the film's denouement is Tower Bridge, completed in 1894 but under construction in the film. The device that threatens the British empire in the film for example, makes use of anachronistic technology yet to be invented.
Of course purists are no doubt outraged by this playing with history and by the liberties taken with Conan Doyle's creation but the film provides two hours of thrills and spills using a familiar cast of characters set alongside a hybrid generic narrative. I for one found the film just what I was looking for after a busy week at work. Film as entertainment and as a means of relaxation has an important place for me alongside the more serious work that constitutes the daily business of teaching film studies, something that sadly I now do rather less of...