With the Guy Ritchie movie “Sherlock Holmes” currently being filmed and the countdown to its release date begun, the prime duty of any forward-thinking Sherlockian this weekend was to run out and catch writer/director Ritchie’s previous project, “Rocknrolla,” which came out this weekend. Of course, with money being tight and the typical Guy Ritchie film perhaps not being to everyone’s taste, I was more than willing to take one for the team this week and look into matters.

“Rocknrolla” is a complex, multi-layered tale of the modern London underworld. Drug addicts, thugs, thieves, fixers, corrupt government sorts . . . it’s a rich, villainous landscape that evokes what Professor Moriarty’s empire might have looked a bit like. One of the great missing pieces in Conan Doyle’s writings of Holmes was always his Cliff Notes version of Sherlock Holmes’s destruction of Professor Moriarty’s organization. It’s not surprising – Conan Doyle was a man of ideals who probably preferred not to get into the heads of street thugs and true career criminals. Guy Ritchie, on the other hand, appears to wallow in it.

Guy Ritchie can do movie crime, which is a bit of a necessity in making a movie about a criminal specialist like Sherlock Holmes. But what else has he got going for him?

Stylish and clever are two things that come to mind. Whether or not one likes his films, it’s hard to say that Guy Ritchie comes across as a very stupid fellow. One of my biggest complaints about so many Sherlock Holmes books and movies is that the creator doesn’t seem smart enough to write a smart Sherlock Holmes, no a plot that would come close to challenging a man of his intellect. Ritchie’s got as good a shot at that as anyone we’ve seen in a while.

Yep, I liked “Rocknrolla,” and it gives me one more reason to hope for a good time in the theater re-imagining Holmes next November. If that wasn't enough, today's researches showed Rachel McAdams will be playing Irene Adler. After coming on strong in 2005’s “Wedding Crashers,” “Red Eye,” and “Family Stone” in quick succession, Rachel McAdams seemed like an actress with a great career ahead of her . . . only to be seen nowhere in 2006.  She had a movie in 2007 and one so far this fall, neither of which I’ve seen, but her still-memorable work from a few years back has me looking forward to her Irene.

On the movie business downside, though, Robert Downey Jr. is riding a Johnny Depp style wave following his mainstream success with “Iron Man.” It’s been announced that he’s already signed for “Iron Man 2” and “The Avengers,” and will probably be commanding goodly paychecks for future films, so if his Sherlock Holmes winds up being moderately successful, but not a blockbuster, the chances for a sequel are slim. But one movie at a time, I guess . . . boy, the possibility of one good movie coming out already has me hoping for sequels.

But even if there aren’t sequels of that particular Sherlock Holmes movie, maybe the Hollywood logjam that has been holding up the flow of Holmes films in the last decade is finally over. A year of anticipation awaits.

Your humble correspondent,
Brad Keefauver