According to an unnamed Warner Brothers’ Executive, Joel Silver and Guy Ritchie’s upcoming Sherlock Holmes feature will be focused on getting the character back to his roots as a stereotypical Guy Ritchie character:
“(The studio is) looking for a ‘grungy’ Holmes. This is Sherlock Holmes as a street-fighting man, ready to take on man, monsters, whatever the world can throw at him…”
Street fighting and monsters? Sounds like vintage Holmes. John Holmes, yes…but I can see how one could mistake the two*. John Holmes’ alter-ego, Johnny Wadd, is probably the second most famous Detective in popular culture.
Meanwhile, Director Ritchie served up this interesting nugget in another interview:
He [Holmes] was more of an action man originally and I didn’t think it was possible to manifest in an efficient way previously in the productions they have. Now we have money and we have the technology (!!) so it seems like we should put it to the test. It was just a natural fit.”
Money and technology? Surely that can only mean a completely CGI Holmes engaging in Gun Kata against an army of cloned Moriarties, EXACTLY as Doyle intended.
* Up until a few years ago: I was convinced I had seen Sherlock Holmes in a group scene with Seka and Ginger Lynn.
It would appear that none of the people involved with this film have ever read a Sherlock Holmes story.
I haven’t read one of the stories since middle school, but I’m fairly certain I’d remember a surly, unkempt Holmes engaging in endless street fighting. How Ritchie and Co. can claim the character is an “action man” based on a few passages over the entire series (most being told second hand rather than happening in the actual story) is beyond me.
It’s not to say their approach isn’t valid, but don’t bullshit and claim it’s not anything but a complete re-invention.
I read them all about fifteen years ago, and it is total bullshit. He got into some scrapes, but the action guy was Watson.
So what’s the deal with Guy Ritchie? I’ve honestly never seen one of his films, and even his fans mostly seem to think that he’s been a disaster for the better part of a decade now. RocknRolla seems like retread of his earlier successes, and doesn’t have good early word from wht I can tell.
Do either Barrels or Snatch hold up at all? Or were his successes a right place/right time sort of thing?
I think the only one I’ve seen was Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and I only saw it the one time theatrically. I remember it as being okay but nothing relevatory.
Snatch was very entertaining at the time, I remember seeing it theatrically twice in a single weekend.
I probably haven’t watched it since 2002 and feel no need to change that. I haven’t seen any of his other films.
OK, so I’ll take that as two votes for “flash in the pan.”
Snatch was hilarious and is still as funny today.
“Get away driver? What exactly can he get away from?”
“It was at a funny angle.”
“Funny angle? It’s right the fuck behind you, Tyrone-”
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was a real treat when it was released, in the same way the Matrix was “brand new” with its camerawork.
I remember one show, don’t remember which one, breaking down the card-playing scene, and the editing tricks and use of stop-motion and then hurry-up.
People ate it up then, for sure, and while an entertaining movie, nowhere near as good as Snatch.
It’s probably a better example of what a good producer can do for a decent director.
Like Silver with McTiernan or Bruckheimer with Tony Scott, and regardless what you think of Matthew Vaughn, there was good reason his collaborations with Ritchie worked, and why Vaughn parted ways after Swept Away. (Mainly, Ritchie thought he was too good to take advice anymore. Case-in-point: Revolver)
Vaughn is a competent producer and an above-average director and he made those movies as fresh and good as they were.
I think it’s testament, too, to how far Joel Silver has fallen in the Hollywood pantheon.
Layer Cake hasn’t aged that well, either.
Ah-I have to disagree…respectfully.
I never thought that Layer Cake was all that good to begin with. Not bad, but fairly standard-issue.
I think, as with the mid-’90’s British gangster picture Face and Robert Carlyle’s performance in that, Layer Cake works just as well today if only for the central performance of Daniel Craig.
That being said, why don’t you think it holds up?
I’d partly agree with Lock, Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels, where the jokes have run thin and feeling of it being something fresh has run out, but how has Layer Cake aged badly? It’s a perfectly capable caper.
Snatch is still fun, too.
Sherlock Holmes has never been done in any memorable way on film, so I’m all right with them trying something new.
“It’s a perfectly capable caper.”
Say that three times fast.
You know what would be completely awesome? A Sherlock Holmes film by Chris Nolan.
That’d be a great fit when it comes to material, with that penchant for dark, twisting, uber-smart stories and conflicted protagonists, but I just want Nolan to do something different than an adaptation next. Something a bit more personal, which he hasn’t done really since Memento, before doing the follow-up to The Dark Knight.
“Aged” might not have been the best word to use. I thought it was an energetic, above-average crime story (without being overly flashy) at the time. Watched it about a year ago and I don’t know…it’s just blah. Generic. Nothing to write home about.
The acting is fine across the board, but the story isn’t very interesting. Vaughn is a better director that Ritchie, but there’s no spark. Technically proficient, but mostly lifeless. There’s little to differentiate it from the dozens of other films made about the London criminal underworld the past decade.
As I said above: it’s a valid approach. Granted, I can’t imagine it will be any good (given the talent involved) but it’s still an attempt at something new. The Apatow version is far more exciting to me, personally.
I just wish that Silver, Ritchie and the studio would be honest about their intentions and stop claiming they’re returning the character to his non-existent roots. Who are they going to offend? Are there legions of Sherlock Holmes fanboys out there?
I thought it was a bit more intelligent and thoughtful than most of them. It had a good angle on how crime is just a relative concept depending on where you’re standing, or how high up you’re standing. As Daniel Craig’s character says in the film
“I’m not a gangster, just a businessman. And my commodity happens to be cocaine.”
Michael Gambon’s character is the nemesis/hero to Craig’s character, and his speeches on their business/crime is interesting.
“Always remember, the art of good business is being a good middleman.”
It’s the typical cliché quote before someone gets whacked, “It’s just business”, but Layer Cake actually takes its time explaining that im/moral point of view.
The unappealing title has explains what most career criminals, i.e. the character’s in the film, feel like they live in and what they strive for.
“You’re born, you take shit. You get out in the world, you take more shit. You climb a little higher, you take less shit. Till one day you’re up in the rarefied atmosphere and you’ve forgotten what shit even looks like. Welcome to the layer cake, son.”
It should be stated that it’s not unprecedented for Hollywood to produce films that have not just spoofed, but undermined the Sherlock Holmes persona. Back in the 1970s there was a film called The Seven-Per-Cent Solution which not only had Holmes as a fraud, but a cocaine addict!
But such films in the past have been conscious revisionism or spoofs; this Ritchie version seems to be treating itself as a serious update and is almost certain to be a disaster.
Also, add me to the list of people who’ve never seen a Guy Ritchie film.