The Robert Downey Jr. Film Guide: Sherlock Holmes (2009)

The Victorian detective and his sidekick punch and kick their way through a mystery involving a creepy occultist.

Sherlock Holmes, a brilliant but unscrupulous detective.

A bit shaggy. Normal for today but an odd match with tidy Victorian costuming.

Accessibly quirky, amusing, won Golden Globe.

It’s a matter of professional integrity! No girl wants to marry a doctor who can’t tell if a man’s dead or not!

His interest in romance falls more on the side of disrupting Watson’s relationship, but he also has a love-hate thing with the Rachel McAdams character.

Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong

Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Jude Law and Rachel McAdams in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

Usually I’m just saying “We had this great chemistry” about a female co-star, and now I’m saying the same thing about Jude. It’s like we should be doing romantic comedies together or something. This film is a love affair of sorts and the two of us knew when to yin and when to yang. We were definitely good together ... [Guy Ritchie] was calling [Jude Law] “Hot-son” so he would say, “You alright Hotsie?” after a take. That became commonplace. Sometimes he would come in and tell me my hair looked like I was about to be in a Vegas show act and we had to fix it, that he would not allow me to look that ridiculous on camera. And often times, he would congratulate both of us on finally being able to deliver some sort of performance approaching heterosexual ... [Holmes and Watson] are two men who happen to be roommates, wrestle a lot and share a bed. It’s bad-ass ... Guy Ritchie said, “If you guys don’t stop queening it up, I don’t have anything I can use. I don’t know what you’re doing—it’s like The Odd Couple on a gay retreat.” He goes, “I love it and I’m laughing, but we have to get back on track.” ... By the time we’re fighting over a waistcoat, I think even though there is no overt sexual thing we’re trying to project in this film, but any two guys who are in close quarters for a long time, we just really tried to enjoy that insinuation ... I love the idea of doing a period piece without trying to be too stylized. I loved 300, but I think that that’s been capitalized on in other films like that, so I like the idea of doing a period piece where you don’t modernize it, you just realize how modern it was. In 1891, it was incredibly modern. And Sherlock Holmes is such a great character to be able to play ... What was always fundamental in the Doyle explanation of Holmes — that he might have had a borderline dependency on narcotics. We wanted to make a PG-13 movie so we were happily forced to address it in a way where it’s a little more approachable. “What you’re drinking is meant for eye surgery” is basically our cocaine reference ... The deeper you go into [the character], the more elusive he is. When you come up against a character so revered, the only thing you can do is sink into it, not even try to swim. That said, when people ask me about Holmes, I’m still able to say, “Well, actually, you know, he never had a curved pipe.” ... One of my favorite parts of this film was, my hair was almost always messy and I didn’t have to shave ... Guy Ritchie said I was too old [for the part]. I love him for that. Then I think they showed him the gross receipts for Iron Man ... It hasn’t been since Chaplin that I had something where I felt how iconic a character is in the collective unconscious. So, I just assumed that to win the respect of people to play this guy, I had to put that out of my mind right off the bat ... Sherlock was part of a great run. Sometimes you’re thrown heat and you can do no wrong. It’s very misleading to get hypnotized by that because it’s a state of grace. It’s something you can’t control, but you can choose to enjoy it ... When we were doing the first Sherlock, we were rewriting it so much, there were pages and pages, I was like, 'give me an earpiece.' And it helped me with my accent. I can finish work, go home, hang out with my kids, I can work out, do whatever I want and in the morning they can change it all they want and I don't have to trip, unless it's some monologue that you really want to be committed to [then I would memorize it].

Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels and short stories

Released in theaters 25 December 2009. On DVD in region 1, 2 and 4, Blu Ray.

Sherlock Holmes: The Abridged Script

Japan: Shârokku Hômuzu
Serbia: Šerlok Holms

70% Fresh | 222 Reviews

A.O. Scott, New York Times: 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 ... They really do [like girls] in spite of the barely sublimated physical passion they manifest for each other in nearly every scene. I’m sure Warner Brothers would like me to change the subject and tell you about the amazing diabolical conspiracy that tests Holmes’s ingenuity.

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The best thing in the movie is Downey. As Holmes, he’s rumpled and amusingly jittery, an investigator who lives on his own plane of perception and can scarcely be bothered with anyone else’s. There’s an authentic Sherlockian intensity about him.

1. The chemistry between Downey and Jude Law.
2. Admit it, you want to know how Lord Blackwood rose from the dead.

Despite a convoluted and irrelevent plot, this is an entertaining movie that feels like a more violent, Victorian version of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.