sherlock holmes

being a long time guy ritchie fan, i've wondered what he could do on a larger scale- a bigger story, bigger toys and bigger numbers with more zeros. yet when i heard he was to direct a version of sir arthur conan doyle's creation, i was skeptical, weren't you? sherlock holmes solves crimes cleverly in his head- all neat as a pin. ritchie's movies involve too cool for school thugs very violently running their own little intersecting pocket worlds-very messy and very small scale. matthew vaughn, (director of  "layer cake", longtime friend, actor and producer on ritchie's prior films) in an interview on "layer cake"'s dvd bonus features complained so much about how ritchie ran a set that when vaughn had a chance to direct he did everything the opposite. so, i was also worried, so much so that while watching this movie i wondered just how much ritchie actually did to make it what it is. well, whatever he did or didn't do, the result, "sherlock homes", is a lot of fun.

One good thing about all the advance year long hype of ritchie taking on such a well known character was that by the time i went to the theater to see it i knew that the holmes story line was really just a suggestion and that i had actually warmed up to the idea of a messier sherlock. (sherlock holmes was a neat freak and a misogynist while dr. watson was around mostly to administer the injections of cocaine.) while basil rathbone and nigel bruce play cleaned up versions of these characters perfectly, the modern version needed some vamping to garner a new audience- this holmes comes with his own batmanesque utility belt.  i'm glad they skipped the cocaine references so as not to glamorize that practice for this younger fanbase.  although one of my favorite holmes related movies is "the seven percent solution" in which holmes (nicol williamson) and sigmund freud (alan arkin) another famous cocaine addict, join forces to solve a crime or whatever, who cares? it's fun.

in "sherlock holmes", producer joel silver puts together some of my favorite things- guy ritchie, robert downey jr, jude law and eddie marsan (the best thing to come out of pbs's recent offering of dicken's "little dorritt"), who play holmes, watson and the ever incompetent chief of police, lestrad.  and sherlock of course. i have read all of doyle's holmes stories and have just finished another book in which holmes is in his 90's, retired, raises bees in the countryside, while going in and out of demetia- in other words, i'm a big fan of sherlock holmes.  the screenplay is tight and the supporting cast is great, however i have a problem with rachel mccadams playing sherlock's erstwhile love who's meant to be a clever career criminal.  she looks seventeen.  beautiful, yes, and she translates well to a period piece (not like carmen diaz in "gangs of new york" or carmen diaz in any movie really) but too young to be so experienced. and if she looks 17 now, when sherlock/downey, looking 50ish now, and she first hooked up she must have been 12.  surely there's an older actress out here who could have played this role and who wouldn't have distracted me into doing math during the film.

there are a lot of ritchie touches in the presentation of the action such as fights in stop motion photography, that translate very well in a big budget action yet period piece. so despite all my skeptiscism, worrying and wondering i have to hand it to guy ritchie for turning out another fun, watchable, smart, and cool looking action film.  it is a guy ritchie movie after all.

it's complicated

it's complicated, is the latest product offered by auteur nancy meyers- the previous being "what women want", "the holiday", and "somethings gotta give". "it's complicated" is most comparable to the latter- in fact it's really the same movie- a successful middle-ager finds herself, despite herself, falling for a bloated self-centered, self-involved, and manipulative man after a long dry spell just as a better and devoted man steps up to her plate.  it's actually very simple and very one note.

i call this film a product because it is very well packaged- pretty people wearing pretty clothes in pretty sets, which is almost all i want in a movie, but this one is missing the one key ingredient, these pretty people need to be doing something interesting. here they don't-ever. and then meyers wraps this package up in a big red bow by force feeding us a very predictably boring ending.  if you've seen the trailer and any appearance on any talk show with clips then you've seen the best parts of this film. you really don't need to spend your money. it's too long, alec really really needs to drop at least 50 -100 lbs ( he  too convincingly plays someone eight years older than he ), and steve needs to stop playing the lovelorn sad sack.

the screenplay is missing the all important secondary plot line and leaves so much potential in the cast unmined. rita wilson, mary kay place, and alexandra wentworth play meryl's cheering section but are given nothing to do. john krasinski plays a future son-in law who unwittingly becomes a party to an affair between his divorced future in-laws and is just thrown in from time to time to get a guffaw. the friends have no lives or histories of their own to offer any interest or advice and krasinki's character was so poorly introduced i thought he was one of the kids for most of the film.

meryl streep looks beautiful, i love alec and he does a great job, as does steve.  there are laugh out loud moments but like i said if you own a tv- you've seen them.  a great cast, a good idea, meyers just dropped the ball by focusing all her energy on the one plot point, which is rarely enough to sustain a film for as long as she tries here.  meyers has found a niche market in the middle ager world.  it is nice seeing romantic comedies without any twenty year olds, or even thirty year olds. but she needs to develop another story line or go off to a retreat somewhere and purge herself of this one.  else in 2 years we'll see yet another version of this story starring michelle pfeiffer and william shatner with greg kinear as the devoted mr. right.

armored

one of my movie going partners called me up and said he wanted to see, "armored".  As justification, he quoted the new york times as calling it "a b movie with soul". but he admitted the real reason he wanted to see it was that the director's name is nimrod.  nimrod antal. i felt i had seen the whole movie when i watched the trailer, but it was his turn to pick the movie. so, reluctantly i went.

i was pleasantly surpised when at the end i found that i actually liked this film. it offers the usual suspects of b caper movies- matt dillon, lawrence fishburne, fred ward, skeet ulrich and jean reno- all of whom are usually scene chewers (except reno). i always think fishburne plays all his parts as othello would- othello as a fry cook, othello as a bank robber, othello as a bank guard. skeet ulrich has been called the poor man's johnny depp for the resemblance and his own over the top acting. (amaury nolasco plays his partner and also stars with the real depp in the upcoming "the rum diary".  i wonder if he got confused...)  fred ward is posey- he hits his marks, stops, poses, then delivers his lines. matt dillon, well face it- the man looks like a muppet version of himself- with that flat forehead, sticky hair, bushy independently active eyebrows and huge mouth that jerks back his head everytime he talks.  the unwitting hero of the film is a relative newbie, columbus short, who had to keep it believable- a war hero turned superman under impossible situations. in this film they all did very good jobs- a feat i attribute to the director.

i loved some of the camerawork- the aerial view of a buick regal for instance, it's beautiful car with awesome lines that just needs to be seen from above.  there is also a running scene that follows our hero through portholes.  the editing is tight, the suspense is on a short leash that tugs the story along at just the right pace. this is one movie that is better than the trailer. 

good job nimrod.