Without a Clue   
 
Director: Thom Eberhardt
Year:  1988
Rating: 6.0
Here is another fine pairing of actors to play Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. That is one of the better things about some Sherlock Holmes films - the combination of two good actors playing against and with one another. The first great pairing I would say was Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. Since then we have had Nicol Williamson and Robert Duval, Christopher Plummer and James Mason, Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, Peter Cushing and Andre Morell. Peter Cushing and John Mills and now in this film the duo of Ben Kingsley and Michael Caine. Their fun interplay is the best thing about the movie.



The film's conceit is rather an absurd one that feels like a one joke film - and it basically is though within that premise there are some quite amusing moments and by the end it had won me over with a final terrific 30 minutes. But there were times it was wearing thin on my patience. In this telling of Sherlock Holmes, it is Dr. Watson who is the detective genius and Holmes is really an unemployed actor that he hired so that his reputation in the medical profession would not be sullied. Not only an unemployed actor but a drunkard, a fanny pincher and a blowhard who loves the attention he gets as Sherlock Holmes. Especially from the ladies. Watson realizes he has created a monster that is more trouble than it is worth but when he tries to go out on his own as the Crime Doctor, no one will pay attention to him. Having to put up with the often inebriated partial nitwit is driving Watson crazy.




When a big case comes up revolving around the stolen plates of the five pound note from the Treasury, they have to come back together. Behind it of course is Moriarty! The production values are excellent in recreating this period and both Caine and Kingsley look like they must be having fun. They strike me as two actors whose style is as different as night and day but they make it work. Also, in the cast is Jeffrey Jones as Lestrade, Paul Freeman as Moriarty and the lovely Lysette Anthony (Krull) as the innocent daughter of the Keeper of the plates. This twist on the Holmes mythology doesn't really work - the constant covering up of his idiocy by Watson gets repetitive - but when you have two actors like this doing it you can forgive a lot. Not that I place a lot of credence in the opinion of a film snob like Canby by I still appreciated this line in his review "that Without A Clue was an appallingly witless sendup of the Sherlock Holmes–Dr. Watson stories". He had probably left by the final 30 minutes.