2012 is a bumper year for Conan Doyle’s deductive detective, Sherlock Holmes, with a new film, a new television series and a new novel. The quality is in ascending order.
Guy Ritchie’s latest franchise film, GAME OF SHADOWS, pits Robert Downey Jr.’s Sherlock against Jared Harris’ Moriarty in a loose (to the point of laxative) telling of THE FINAL PROBLEM, Conan Doyle’s curtain call for the Baker Street sleuth. Oh, that we should be so lucky that this was the swansong of this particular cinematic series, of which this instalment had me harrumphing “Alimentary”.
The trouble, as I see it, is that the director has two marvelous characters played by two very watchable actors (Jude Law is back as Watson), yet he doesn’t trust either! Instead of letting them breathe, and letting the narrative run, Ritchie leaves story and character breathless. What should be breathtaking storytelling is breathless blather, brain draining cutting, the same mindless film editing that trashed James Bond’s last outing, QUANTAM SOLACE.
It seems the man who gave us LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS doesn’t know how to keep his powder dry. A visually arresting scene concerning a chase through the woods loses much of its power because Ritchie has telegraphed the trick photography from the film’s get-go.
Stephen Fry is left out to dry as Sherlock’s brother, Mycroft, and the original girl with the dragon tattoo, Noomi Rapace, gets way too little kick arse action to make an impression. Eddie Marson’s contribution as Inspector Lestrade will surely get him a nomination as best performance from the cutting room floor.
It’s left to Jared Harris to steal the show, as is right and fitting for the Napoleon of crime.
This is a film for the video game set. I suppose the clue is in the title – not for those interested in clear cinema narrative, nor, I suspect, fans of Conan Doyle. It made me feel Holmesaphobic. Luckily I was cured of such a phobia by reading THE HOUSE OF SILK, the new Sherlock Holmes novel published by Orion.
Written by Anthony Horowitz, creator of FOYLE’S WAR and MIDSOMMER MURDERS, and adapter of many of the recent Poirot television appearances, THE HOUSE OF SILK begins with a beguiling conceit that Holmes’ chronicler, Dr. John Watson, had purposefully suppressed the publication of a casebook.
“The adventures of THE MAN IN THE FLAT CAP and THE HOUSE OF SILK were, in some respects, the most sensational of Sherlock Holmes’s career but at the time it was impossible for me to tell them, for reasons that will become abundantly clear….the events which I am about to describe were simply too monstrous, too shocking to appear in print.”
And so the game’s afoot, with a great story and in tone with the original works … so much so that this new story has been written with the full endorsement of the Conan Doyle Estate. This is the first such time that they have given their seal of approval for a new Sherlock Holmes novel.
The setting is late 19th century London, but the puzzling and sinister case, complete with corruption, coercion and cover-ups in high places is as contemporary as phone hacking scandals and internet scams.
“Show Holmes a drop of water and he would deduce the existence of the Atlantic. Show it to me and I would look for a tap.” muses Dr. Watson. In nailing Conan Doyle’s style, Horowitz manages seduction by deduction, creating a redux as opposed to a reflux in the case of the film, GAME OF SHADOWS.
Clever plotting, rich characterisation, nimble pacing, and a nice sense of nuance make this a worthy continuation of the Conan Doyle canon. Whereas the film looks like it’s been shot from a cannon!
© Richard Cotter
5th January, 2012
Tags: Arthur Conan-Doyles, SHERLOCK HOLMES: GAME OF SHADOWS, THE FINAL PROBLEM, Stephen Fry, Naomi Rapace, Eddie Marson, THE HOUSE OF SILK, Anthony Horowitz.