Sherlock Holmes (2009) is an Action/Adventure movie directed by Guy Ritchie and based on the novel written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The movie stars Robert Downey Jr. (as Sherlock), Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Kelly Reilly and Mark Strong in the lead roles.
Sherlock Holmes (2009) tells the story of famous Detective Sherlock Holmes and his stalwart partner John H. Watson, as they engage in a battle of wits and brawn with a nemesis whose plot is a threat to all of England.
We all love Sherlock Holmes whether it’s played by Robert Downey Jr. Or Benedict Cumberbatch. It’s the character we enjoy watching solving the case in his own clever and annoying ways. Well, let’s move on to the interesting facts and details about the movie.
Sherlock Holmes 2009 movie poster
11. Watson's line to Holmes, "You know that what you're drinking is for eye surgery?", is an obscure reference to Holmes's cocaine usage. At the time, cocaine was used as a topical anesthetic for eye surgery. In the stories, Holmes injects cocaine.
9. In the stories, Sherlock Holmes is described to be an expert in Baritsu. In the film, however, the martial art that Holmes used is the Wing-Chun Kung Fu (famously used by Ip Man Yee and Bruce Lee). Actor Robert Downey Jr. is a practitioner of the art in real life and the fight scene between him and David Garrick at Punchbowl Pit was coordinated with the help of his trainer.
8. There are repeated references to five women murdered by Lord Blackwood before the beginning of the movie. Five is also the number of women that the bulk of historians agree were murdered by Jack the Ripper (additional victims are disputed).
6. The first Sherlock Holmes film to reach U.S. movie theaters in over twenty years, since the 1988 comedy Without a Clue (1988) with Michael Caine as Reginald Kincaid/"Sherlock Holmes".
4. The film depicts Watson pressing Holmes to meet his fiancée, Mary Morstan; Holmes is reluctant to do so. In the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mary Morstan is introduced as a client (in the novel "The Sign of Four"). She and Watson fall in love while he assists Holmes in her case, and he proposes to her at the end of the novel.
3. The name of Sherlock Holmes and Watson's English bulldog is Gladstone. He seems to be named after William Gladstone, four-time Prime Minister under Queen Victoria.
Movie Details Facts and Trivia 