Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows

Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law, Noomi Rapace, Stephen Fry
Directed by Guy Ritchie
Rating:

n the new Guy Ritchie adventure, Sherlock Holmes is in thick amid bombings and assassinations in Strasbourg, Paris and London. The world may attribute the violence to anarchists/nationalists (depending on their political allegiances and beliefs) but Holmes is able to see through it as a conspiracy by his arch-rival Professor Moriarty to bring France and Germany to war.

The film kicks off on a fun note with Holmes, Downey, at his playful, outrageous and cheeky best as he fights villains, gets into silly disguises and argues interminably with Watson, Law, on his decision to get married. But soon, things get too farcical and campy for comfort. Why, you even get Holmes in drag and find his elder brother Mycroft (Fry) roaming about in the buff. Instead of the mysteries, clues, red herrings, deductions, mind games and the grey cells, you get endless chases, fights, bullets and battles, on the streets, in the trains. In these sequences, Ritchie takes us back and forth in time to show how Holmes had planned to triumph in the encounters. Call it the Jeremy Brett effect, but I prefer my Holmes as a man of mind than one of action. With Ritchie, it’s just action, comedy and attitude. All the way. In short: masala entertainer.