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Jan. 31st, 2023 06:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I've just rewatched Hands of a Murderer which isn't great but also is far from being the worst Sherlock Holmes thing I've ever seen. It's one of those things where they made the 'bad guy' far more interesting than the 'good guys' though; Woodward isn't a completely terrible Holmes but he's just sort of... mediocre. Andrews' Moriarty is far more engaging and interesting. Despite them committing the unforgivable sin of making Moriarty straight in it, his portrayal itself is still one of the few I've always liked. Also it does make an interesting point about Mycroft, as a person of importance in the British government, being one of the people responsible for sending people off to war which is something that definitely ties in to my major issues with Mycroft, and with Sherlock Holmes and Watson and everything else to do with 'law and order' in the stories - the things Mycroft is responsible for and represents (and the things that often Sherlock too, and Watson with him are helping to support) are actually worse than anything Moriarty could ever do, and like Moran... Watson thinks Moran used to be an "honourable soldier" but the things Moran did as an "honourable soldier" were all tied in with colonialism and racism and sending British soldiers to fight and die for 'queen and country' in another country on the other side of the world, a place the queen never even visited and a place probably a lot of the other people, the politicians, playing about with people's lives never even visited either. Moran left the army; he rebelled against all of that, and Moriarty and Moran, they are not responsible for the things that Mycroft and the rest of the government and the monarchy are, and in rebelling against those they are actually rebelling against a lot of really dubious shit, while Watson got forced out of the army through injury and illness and doesn't really seem to see a problem with any of it. This film doesn't actually go that far nor does it bother to include Moran (there is a colonel connected to Moriarty but he's not Moran and as far as I can tell is not intended to be him under another name or anything), but it did at least briefly acknowledge that part of the reason someone who's supposed to be a 'true patriot' might betray the British was basically because he was sick of their shit and people like Mycroft just treating his men as cannon fodder.
Also I appreciate that Moriarty doesn't actually die in this film - they try to hang him but he escapes, then you get the ~dramatic~ carriage chase and plunge into the water and some guff about the water being deep and the current sweeping the bodies away but that is nonsense; if Moriarty died there he would have been found (the same in fact as in the canon. People who know far more about these things than me have pointed out that a man's body is not just going to disappear at the Reichenbach Falls, it would be washed up downstream). Ergo, Moriarty survived in it (probably because as I always say Moriarty is actually Death and you can't kill Death).
Also I'm not sure if they actually realised the significance of this or not but there is definitely something very interesting about them implying the police have beaten a confession out of a suspect (one who we the viewer know isn't even a criminal, he's just an unwitting pawn) while having Moriarty stating he doesn't like unnecessary violence and repeatedly avoiding seriously physically harming people.
So I think I will be keeping this one.
Also I appreciate that Moriarty doesn't actually die in this film - they try to hang him but he escapes, then you get the ~dramatic~ carriage chase and plunge into the water and some guff about the water being deep and the current sweeping the bodies away but that is nonsense; if Moriarty died there he would have been found (the same in fact as in the canon. People who know far more about these things than me have pointed out that a man's body is not just going to disappear at the Reichenbach Falls, it would be washed up downstream). Ergo, Moriarty survived in it (probably because as I always say Moriarty is actually Death and you can't kill Death).
Also I'm not sure if they actually realised the significance of this or not but there is definitely something very interesting about them implying the police have beaten a confession out of a suspect (one who we the viewer know isn't even a criminal, he's just an unwitting pawn) while having Moriarty stating he doesn't like unnecessary violence and repeatedly avoiding seriously physically harming people.
So I think I will be keeping this one.