Film Web Blog

They crack you up … Robert Downey Jr as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson in Sherlock Holmes

Guy Ritchie’s take on Conan Doyle’s classic English sleuth is not exclusively of its problems: his protagonist does not very fit the action hero mould into which the much-maligned film-maker has squeezed him, and those who find Ritchie’s more laddish tendencies distasteful may be dismayed by the movie’s predilection for extreme violence. Nevertheless, the critics be in possession of just about bought Sherlock Holmes as every intermittently entertaining romp through a stylised Victorian London, thanks mainly to a barnstorming doing by Robert Downey Jr in the title role and its Dan Brown-lite storyline.

1. Sherlock Holmes
2. Production year: 2009
3. Countries: Australia, Rest of the world, UK, USA
4. Cert (UK): 12A
5. Runtime: 128 mins
6. Directors: Guy Ritchie
7. Cast: Bronagh Gallagher, Eddie Marsan, Geraldine James, Hans Matheson, James Fox, Jude Law, Kelly Reilly, Mark Strong, Rachel McAdams, Robert Downey Jr., William Hope
8. More in continuance this film

This Holmes is up against the villainous Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), an
apparently undying pseudo-fascist necromancer who plans to lead England on
a mission to reconquer America and eventually the world – presumably a
heinous plan cooked up to speed the pulses of our translatlantic cousins.
At the same time he must face up to the loss of his longtime confidant and
aide Dr Watson (a much-praised Jude Law), who is about to marry his amour
Mary Morstan (Kelly Reilly). Meanwhile, Holmes’s old flame Irene Adler
(Rachel McAdams) is also in town and seemingly uncovered to interfere a fool of our
hero.

“There are worse things than loutish, laddish cool, and as a series of
poses and stunts, Sherlock Holmes is intermittently diverting,” writes the
New York Times’ AO Scott.

“The visual style – a smoky, greasy, steam-punk rendering of Victorian London, full of soot and guts and bad teeth and period clothes – shows some undeniable flair. And so do the kinetic chases and scrapes that lead us through the incorporated town, as Holmes and his pal Watson scramble to unravel a complot to such a degree diabolical that it fails to be interesting. Best of all is the banter between Mr Downey and Mr Law, who is looser and more mischievous than he’s allowed himself to be in quite some time.”

“The less I thought about Sherlock Holmes, the more I liked Sherlock Holmes,” writes Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. “Yet another classic hero has been fed into the f/x mill, emerging as a modern superman. Guy Ritchie’s film is filled with sensational sights, over-the-top characters and a without hope have a contest atop Tower Bridge, which is tranquil under construction. It’s likely to be enjoyed by the agency of today’sitting deed fans. But block bookings are not likely from the Baker Street Irregulars.”

“Ritchie’s period London is a sexy, murky and mucky variation on the
capital he’s continually called home,” writes Empire’s William Thomas. “Desaturated and seductive, it’s a brilliantly realised environment gay with possibility and loaded through landmarks because our heroes to lark in regard to on, right up to a terrific acme on a half-built Tower Bridge … [This is] a fun, action-packed reintroduction to Conan Doyle’s classic characters.”

Our own Peter Bradshaw, in whatever manner, is less of a mind to brush off Holmes’session deficiencies – nor those of its director – so lightly.

“It’s a souped-up Victorian crime romp with Holmes and Watson reinvented in the same manner with
wisecracking skirmish heroes, played by Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law – a
two-man coalition of moderately beautiful ordinary gentlemen,” he writes.

“As ever, Ritchie has some bareknuckle fighting in slow-motion interspersed
with very-quick-speeded-up-motion and there’s plenty of diddly-diddly Irish
folk music in the background. I fear producer Joel Silver may feel like
grabbing Ritchie and plunging with him down the Reichenbach Falls.”

For me, this was not so plenteous Sherlock Holmes as Sherlock Bond, complete with sneering villain who wants to take in excess the world, high-octane fight sequences and a theme-park view of 19th-century London that signally failed to convey the dirt and the horror.

I also disagree that Downey Jr saved the day. The actor is one of the most enjoyable presences in current cinema, but here seemed uncomfortable
in a role that required a quiet, contained charisma rather than the brash cheeky chappy bravado with a view to which he’s known and loved. Furthermore, the storyline felt Hollywoodised from origin to expiration: the shifts and turns were all played out in a way we’ve seen a million times before, complete with expository dialogue and last-minute declarations of affection in the face of imminent death. Ritchie can gratulate himself towards having successfully pulled off a movie that pushes everything the right studio buttons, and has clearly carved himself an unlikely career beyond his trademark (highly enjoyable) mockney romps. Yet he may have being slightly dismayed to discover that he is, to all intents and purposes, the new Brett Ratner.

What’s your view of Sherlock Holmes? Did Ritchie’s all-action take get your
pulse racing? Or did the whole thing have you pining for the more tempered
tone and pace maintained by the agency of past incarnations of the great detective?

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Saving the globe, one chord at a time … Team America: World Police

Team America arrived slap bang in the middle of the decade. It was released in the UK in January 2005, the same week as Million Dollar Baby. That pellicle went on to dominate the Oscars; this has one lowly award to its credit (Empire’s best comedy).

1. Team America: World Police
2. Production year: 2004
3. Country: USA
4. Cert (UK): 15
5. Runtime: 98 mins
6. Directors: Trey Parker
7. Cast: Kristen Miller, Matt Stone, Trey Parker
8. More on this film

The two films couldn’t be more different: Clint Eastwood’s boxing drama was a long warm soak in a muddy plash of cliches wrung from cheap sports weepies – a drippy homage to cinema at its greatest part opposed to change.

Team America is a wrecking round. The most audacious carnage of sacred cows seen on celluloid, it’s a cackling, gleeful hail of precision-aimed bullets, full of brains and desire of superiority. All this despite – or maybe because – it solely features puppets: jerky, wooden, Thunderbirds-esque dollies through all-too-visible strings attached.

Written and voiced by South Park’s Matt Stone and Trey Parker, this marionette action-musical has a pop at everything: Hollywood, Broadway, evil dictators, gung-ho superpowers, the intelligence service, bleeding heart liberals, actors – especially, actors – before signing off with a devastating, if filthy, defence of US interventionism. Politically, it’s scattergun; satirically, it’s spot-on.

Our Team is a five-strong elite fighting crew in star-spangled jumpsuits who cruise the globe saving it from dubious terrorist threats – the cleft order of succession has them defusing a suitcase in Paris and laying waste to the Eiffel tower, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe and a square decorated with croissants. Having lost a key member in the op, they recruit “maverick actor” Gary during his infiltration skills. Gary returns from a missionary station in Egypt (or, what’s left of it) with bad news: Kim Jong-Il is plotting “9/11 times 1,000 … basically all the worst abilities of the Bible”. And his retired weapon? Showbiz lefties such as Tim Robbins, Helen Hunt and Alec Baldwin, whose vanity he’s preyed on to be the keynote speakers at a peace convention, during which Kim plans to detonate those elusive WMDs while the world’s leaders sit, starstruck and furious.

You could accuse Team America of multitude things – blasphemy, obscenity, sadism, racism. But no one could accuse it of pulling its punches. It’s utterly valorous. There’s no beating round the bush; scant metaphor, in fact – just plain speaking.

It’s likewise ferociously funny, though most of the humour does, finally, come from the sight of the 2ft marionettes tottering around, gracelessly getting drunk, having inventive sex, attempting to walk through doorways, even wrestling panthers (played by kittens).

So, Team America doesn’cheek by jowl have fourth set on our poll for being important. Indeed, if anything, what the last five years have proved is its scantiness of concrete impact – celebs keep spouting, movies keep falling back attached montages, Michael Moore still blows his promulgate. Indeed, it’s a film that, when it does age, will do so rapidly and irretrievably – you have to wonder at the way Stone and Parker have sacrificed longevity for cultural accuracy.

No, Team America ranks this high because it’session a bona fide masterpiece: crafted, artful, brilliant.

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Our of the fog of war … The Hurt Locker, whose star Jeremy Renner and director Kathryn Bigelow should be in the Academy’sitting sights

As the end of 2009 approaches we’re in the thick of the US awards season and pretty much everyone from the critics groups and some of the guilds to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the American Film Institute and the local barman have publicised their nominees and winners. Top 10 palaestra with respect to 2009 have been drawn up, the year’s most admired actors and actresses have been proposed and anointed, and the merits of the best work in directing, screenwriting, editing and all the crafts have been debated. The only corpse that has yet to weigh in on the virtues of Gabourey Sidibe or George Clooney or Invictus is the tutelary of the Oscars – the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

1. The Hurt Locker
2. Production year: 2008
3. Country: USA
4. Cert (UK): 15
5. Runtime: 131 mins
6. Directors: Kathryn Bigelow
7. Cast: Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Christian Camargo, David Morse, Guy Pearce, Jeremy Renner, Ralph Fiennes
8. More on this film

When the Academy’s 4,000 or so members announce their nominees on 2 February, we’ll know who’s in the running for the biggest film prizes on the planet. The Oscars remain so, even though they are largely voted by a nostalgic gerontocracy and serve to prop up a vain and venal Hollywood culture. Having said that, it’s hard not to be seduced by it all in continuance the night. After all, the Academy often gets it right and gives awards to some immensely talented, deserving people. Just don’t expect me to be cheering without interruption the studios after the movies.

So who is likely to be in contention for the major Oscars come the big night on 7 March? It’session not hard to answer because the landscape is always familiar by this stage. The weaker candidates and campaigns have fallen by the wayside like pathetic beasts, while the real runners and riders march on. The Golden Globe nominations serve as an commensurate guide, in part because the HFPA’s 83 voting members dress in’t labour under a moral imperative to make outré selections like some of the critics groups, and partly because they cover virtually whole the likely best likeness and lead acting contenders through their two separate contests (for dramatic and musical/comedy categories).

This year there will subsist 10 best print Oscar nominees and I reckon the following will make it on to the list: The Hurt Locker, Avatar, Precious, Up in the Air, Invictus, Up, Inglourious Basterds, Fantastic Mr Fox, Star Trek and for the latest slot harvested land The Blind Side or Julie & Julia. As for lead dramatic artist I believe George Clooney direction be in contention for Up in the Air, alongside Morgan Freeman for Invictus, Colin Firth for A Single Man, Jeff Bridges notwithstanding Crazy Heart and, lastly, an actor who was omitted from the Golden Globe nominations, Jeremy Renner concerning The Hurt Locker. For lead actress, I papal court Carey Mulligan for An Education, Helen Mirren for The Last Station, Meryl Streep for Julie & Julia, Gabourey Sidibe for Precious, and good old Sandra Bullock since The Blind Side. The HFPA, I would hazard one’s self, got it spot on for the director race: Kathryn Bigelow because The Hurt Locker, her ex-husband James Cameron for Avatar, Jason Reitman for Up in the Air, Clint Eastwood for the sake of Invictus and Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds.

For my standard of value, The Hurt Locker is far and away the best movie in what has been a rather poor year for English-language fare; it deserves to get the compliance of three major prizes. Bigelow has evermore been one of our big action directors and she should win the Oscar for pulling off a movie (with the assistance of her elegant cast and Mark Boal’s screenplay) that I suspect will remain just as compelling and insightful about the allure of war in 30 years’ time as it is now. It’s a gripping, visceral movie anchored by a mesmerising lead performance from Renner.

His only real competition is Firth, who is quite wonderful in A Single Man. These two are head and shoulders above the rest this year, but that doesn’t mean anything inasmuch as the Academy likes to reward careers, which means any of the other three may come out on top. But if awards are truly about excellence, in what way can the Academy in all good faith bestow the Oscar on Clooney, who is inexistence more than a genial everyman? Or Freeman, a decent but too often unengaging actor who does nought to bring Nelson Mandela to life in Eastwood’sitting dull, dull, dull Invictus? Not even as formidable a talent taken in the character of Bridges deserves it this year because he offers nothing fresh in Crazy Heart.

The best actress head of predication is biting and I’d be thrilled if it went to Abbie Cornish for her utterly absorbing Fanny Brawne in Bright Star. But will the Academy even give her a nomination? Hollywood’s hive mind dictates that established favourites and those movies deemed to be most worthy or backed by the most vociferous champions will be the ones that conduce it into the final pool. This is why the exceedingly upright but hardly extraordinary movie Precious, supported loudly and proudly in the US by media moguls Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, will not only (quite rightly) get a best picture nomination but propel the previously unknown Sidibe into the best actress race. Really? Watch the movie and ask yourself, is this a performance you’re going to remember for years? Then watch Cornish in Bright Star, a movie without a bombastic awards campaign, and see the difference.

In the supporting categories, three names are frontrunners. Christoph Waltz really did steal the show in Inglourious Basterds and I’d love to see him arrive the men’s prize. For the women, Julianne Moore in A Single Man and Mo’Nique in Precious are immense, although each only shines in a single scene. Moore is one of the finest performers of her generation, only this year my heart is set on Mo’Nique. I’d love to see the Coen brothers win a third screenplay Oscar for A Serious Man, be it so Tarantino is a safer wage in the original writing category for Inglourious Basterds, while the word in Hollywood is that Reitman and Sheldon Turner have the adapted screenplay prize in the bag on the side of Up in the Air.

2009 produced gorgeous act of enlivening and give leave to’s hope the sentimental Academy members give us the whole of a year off from Pixar and award the prize to Coraline or Fantastic Mr Fox. There have been more remarkable foreign-language movies, too. Jaques Audiard’s A Prophet is one hell of a movie, but Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon is something besides and feels too weighty to overlook. What do you favour? And what do you imagine the Academy will, finally, business for?

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