The lighting and cinematography by Philippe Rousselot alone warrants an Oscar nod for Sherlock Holmes. If that’s the only category it gets nominated in I’d be satisfied. Like a Dutch painting, like Rembrandt or Italian painter Caravaggio, the light in Sherlock Holmes often comes in from the side, one side of the screen sparsely hotter than the other, often the darker side falling off into a fathomless depth that adds terrifically to the black magic and sorcery that conjures forth mysteries to be solved by our characters Holmes played by Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law’s Dr. John Watson—two buddies the likes of which we haven’t seen on film since Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid (1969); hunting down clues around dirty old London like you would expect in a film about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, and one directed by Guy Ritchie. Filthy, fighting, trouble-prone men who find themselves in another one of Ritchie’s complicated plots only this time all the glory will be for a Warner Brothers franchise, set in the London year of 1891.

I haven’t seen a buddy film like this in ages. These guys are every bit as good as Newman and Redford, Gibson and Glover, Martin and Lewis, Mathau and Lemmon. Joel Silver is one of the producers and along with Downey…I have to say it’s extraordinarily good to see these guys back in top form. Silver, producer of the Lethal Weapon, Die Hard and Matrix films, not to mention Predator and nearly a hundred other films most of which audiences can quote by heart, is part of a host of key personnel including Downey’s wife Susan, Rousselot, composer Hans Zimmer, editor James Herbert, and especially the outstanding Jude Law—not to mention the Screenwriters, Production Designer, Costume and Art Designers, Visual Effects team—who lift Downey to the peak of his career once again. More so than did the talents of Iron Man. It’s funny that in 1992 the same thing could be said of him after his Oscar nomination for Chaplin.

In Sherlock Holmes he is every bit the controlled clown Charlie Chaplin ever was (and I think he uses Chaplin’s cane on occasion in Holmes), plus he is Buster Keaton, Harry Houdini, Will Shakespeare, James West and what could be considered a caffeinated Columbo, seemingly pathological and scatter-brained but focused like a laser beam, and genuinely shocked when discoveries are made outside of his predetermined deduction of the way events will unfold.

The script could easily have been written by David Mamet, Tom Stoppard or Robert Townsend. In fact there’s a pocket watch used as a clue in the film like Jake in the Townsend penned Chinatown uses to help his detectiveness—props written into the script to show the audience through action how the character is processing their thoughts, which in turn moves the story forward. And which also gives the characters characteristics separating them from the average Joe, traits unique to their personality.

In Sherlock Holmes, Ritchie comes of age as a great director. I knew he had it in him but Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), Snatch (2000), and RocknRolla (2008) like all of his films amble on in amusing fight sequences and humorous plot diversions that seem to be inside jokes written for a fraternity of pub-going Tarantino fans more so than for a wide, popcorn eating, coke drinking audience that sees the likes of Batman and other comic book hero films (and horror films) as Hollywood’s bread and butter. Ritchie’s characters in Holmes are no longer fighting just to be cool at fighting. Now they are fighting for their lives, fighting to win each battle and get through each round to the end of the journey which is to say they do something other than rob banks, fight dogs, get revenge, or steal diamonds…though there is a rather large diamond in this movie and it’s probably the same one that is the cause of all evils more than a hundred years later in the London of Snatch. For the most part, what I’m saying is that you don’t get the impression here that Holmes and Watson are out for monetary gain, they’re in it for intellectual challenges and brotherly support which combined make for a jolly good adventure. If they’re helping out the town and possibly saving mankind from gruesome destruction, becoming end of Victorian-age super heroes as a result, then so be it. They are perfectly suited for the job.

Holmes and Watson are definitely journey men and this expedition involves the resurrection of a man named Blackwood, hung by the British for practicing “black magic” and for murdering five Londoners. As Blackwood’s father would later say, he’s killed a lot more than that. He is one scary dude as shadowy lighting, an awesomely aggressive music score, and a black crow motif inform us; he has come back from the dead to make England whole again, to rule the colonies and to do so by way of more deathly fears than Harry Potter’s Lord Voldemort. He’s up to something really big and though Watson pronounced him dead, and Holmes witnessed the hanging, they both are afoot on a game to find the deceased and put an end to his sorcery. Sure, it lingers into distractions and long dialogue pieces but this is Ritchie’s style and I want to believe he fought for it though it seems slightly more scripted, more honed and policing in its ability to keep Ritchie on track; more Hollywood at its core. You can see the plot wants to break free of its Tinsel Town reigns and it has that pugilistic feel, as if Ritchie is imposing his Smoking Barrel shenanigans on the straight and narrow, to rebel, and it makes for a very deep structural conflict that you sense in your bones more than you realize. It’s like we get a taste of what the controlled chaos must be like for the Holmes mind. And instead of filling in story gaps with a thug’s voice-over of ornery events gone awry as Ritchie is accustomed to doing, in Holmes he channels all of that in to the distinctive, studious, addict-like impulses of Sherlock. One could say with his partiality for routine and difficulties with affection, Holmes might have Autistic disorders.

From Google Health, “people with Autism may: (a) be overly sensitive in sight, hearing, touch, smell, or taste,” and this gives Holmes an almost superhuman ability to draw unforeseen conclusions by way of sensual deduction; (b) “show unusual attachments to objects,” as in his pipe, and his hats; (c) “does not adjust gaze to look at objects that others are looking at,” (d) “repeats words or memorized passages, such as commercials,” or in this case Shakespeare, or (e) “rubs surfaces, mouths, or licks objects;” (f) “prefers solitary or ritualistic play;” (g) “gets stuck on a single topic or task;” (h) “is overactive or very passive.”

Holmes is a special person, a real “super human” who sees it first in his psyche, says it to himself as he sees it play out, and then does it exactly as he foretold it. Often times in slow motion as if on a DJ’s turntable. DJ Ritchie G scratches and stops the needle just at the right places, letting the beat of the scene, the peak of a Holmes prediction, reveal itself. Then the DJ puts the same record on (no reference to Madonna intended) and releases the “song” again in real time seeing the events unfold just as Sherlock described them beforehand. Though done by many young filmmakers, this stopping and starting and changing of visual motion has become solely a Ritchie trademark and it works here with exacting degree to convey exactly how a man as smart as Sherlock Holmes thinks. This by far is Ritchie’s greatest achievement with the film.

Sherlock Holmes is a reworking of Doyle’s character for sure in terms of look and feel though it’s steeped in films and characters of the past that include Barry Levinson’s Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939) starring Basil Rathbone, and Billy Wilder’s version The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes from 1970. This year’s version continues the legend with those same comedic, adventurous, buddy film genre traits updated here with precision by Oscar winning technicians and directed by one of the most capable action directors of the decade. Sherlock Holmes is so well done I put it at the number one in my top nine of the year. Move over Chris Nolan. Guy Ritchie is in town.

Rated PG-13 for violence, intense action and “suggestive material.” Also starring Rachel McAdams (Wedding Crashers (2005)) who is an attractive and strong female counterpart to Holmes, and also starring the superb Mark Strong (Archy from RocknRolla (2008)).

NOTE: When a rouge bullet ricochets off of metal and deafens everyone in the scuffle we still hear the muffled sounds of fists and gun shots as we follow Holmes’ and Watson’s every move using firefighter-quick instincts, like soldiers racing to a gun fortress on a battlefield. The movie starts like this, with action and doesn’t let up for a good clip until we see the first and only title card, Sherlock Holmes. This is the kind of ride Barry Sonnenfeld’s Wild, Wild West (1999) and all of the James Bond films of the last ten years should have been like. Gritty, realistic, and artfully crafted.  Read the production notes for more info. Also a good interview at Comic Book Resources here.