Slapstick action
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows lacks a strong middle and tends to wander aimlessly before the director gets his act together

British filmmaker Guy Ritchie has by now established a reputation for his whip-quick London gangster films and in his latest effort Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, he resorts to the same strategy, aided and abetted by two very talented performers in Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law, but it falls short by a long, long way.

Ritchie’s Snatch and Lock, Stock and Smoking Barrel had scope for such treatment but not Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s singular creation. Holmes is the epitome of the low-key, silent detective whose deeds speak louder than words. In this film, he is more brawn than brain and gets into all manner of combat, sword-fencing, smoking guns, martial arts, the works and his famed pipe appears only towards the end. Just because Ritchie is British doesn’t give him licence to Americanise this home-grown hero. Elementary, Mr Watson.

But having overlooked this point, one could look forward to a breezy, romp through old London (the sets are good) but the slapstick action, the mindless gags and a lukewarm villain in Jared Harris as Prof Moriarity divests the narrative of much of its flavour. The screenplay by Michele and Kierney Mulroney (from Abid Nazir’s text) is quite unimaginative, indulging far too excessively in the physical. The film also lacks a strong middle and tends to wander aimlessly in doldrums before it decides to act.

The female parts by Noomi Rapace and Rachel McAdams are merely academic and Stephen Fry as Holmes’ brother quite pointless. The net result is having to wade through 120 minutes of what passes for blood and thunder but is neither. One cannot fault Downeyenthusiasm or Jude Law’s disdain at having to be led down the aisle but this is not enough to justify this dubious transformation of a cult figure. Give me that old-fashioned coat-tailed, eye-glassed detective any day.

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