Watch Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking For Free

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Highly Overrated But Still Good

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

An original BBC story with Conan Doyle's two main characters Sherlock Holmes (Rupert Everett) and Dr. Watson (Ian Hart), "The Case Of The Silk Stocking" takes place in London in the early 1900s. A young girl of the English aristocracy has been murdered. Some of the story characters are aristocratic and not very likable. Major scenes take place in a high brow, Victorian setting.The plot is clear enough and there's some genuine suspense. But there are too few suspects. I kept waiting for some strange plot twist; it never came. The story's underlying premise I found disappointing. And the solution to the case is revealed too soon.Although Holmes presents many of the traits and mannerisms we would expect from Conan Doyle's original character, in this film, as portrayed by Rupert Everett, the character comes across less intellectual as merely haughty and hostile, not unlike the aristocratic characters into whose world he has entered. Except for the charming young females, the entire bundle of characters is too snooty and superior for my preference.Probably the best element is the editing, which skillfully blends concurrent events in an interesting way and shows character relationships across the entirety of the principal cast. Intermittent background music is nondescript and a bit loud. Costumes and prod design are expertly crafted for a difficult social class and historical era. Color cinematography is indifferent but competent. They went a bit overboard with the fog machine.Well worth a one-time viewing, "The Case Of The Silk Stocking" strikes me as your typically well-directed but assembly-line-produced murder mystery. The result is a modern update of an iconic fictional detective investigating an original, but none too believable, story; by-the-numbers script; and a well-known but miscast actor in the title role.

So this will be a spoiler in itself, but I didn't like the disagreeable character portrayed by Mr. Everett, nor the little quarrels with dr. Watson and Mrs. Hudson in the first minutes of its running time. But I left when the bourgeois family of high-society girls appeared for the first time. Holmes is a great Victorian invention, but I had the feeling that from Victorianism this made-for-TV film would only retain the china and affected manners, not the charm! And in fact, previous reviewers state that this is "much darker" than usual. Dark -- an adjective I once loved and now almost pity! Not for hardcore Sherlockians, perhaps, this could be recommended to any other lost soul.

This more recent film is excellent because it uses the modern story telling technique, and technology, of the 21sy century. For example the editing is quite creative. In this film Sherlock Holmes is more advanced in his life since Dr Watson is going to get married and he is depicted as addicted to both opium and heroine. The second characteristic is that he collaborates better with Scotland Yard and even accepts or condescends to have a desk there. The film is extremely hostile at least, if not even worse, against the aristocracy. It is unimaginable how much this case turns around a lady Chatterley's lover syndrome. And these nobles, in that case a woman, who makes up with the system by cheating it in its back, are unethical to the utmost. That lady prefers seeing young girls in good families around her disappear in the hands of a sadistic serial killer rather than even acknowledging her definitely dangerous liaison. The film is also more realistic about the dirty reality of Victorian and Edwardian England. Even with the nobles and their palaces, dust, dirt and even slime is just under the surface. Don't scratch too much, and I am not only talking of the slime you discard in a dustbin or a garbage can. The whole case is endangered though by some careless acts of the police. They don't seem to know about handcuffs and of course do not carry guns. On the other side Sherlock Holmes playing it psychological, even psychiatric and definitely ruthless leads him close to the truth but he escapes catastrophe out of pure luck. He is too sure of himself, vain with his superiority, in fact the idea of opium and heroine is a genial idea from Sir Conan Doyle: it explains that superiority complex the man has. He does not have a chip on the shoulder, nor a stick up his nose, but he sure carries the whole world on his shoulders, at least so he thinks.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID

I didn't find Rupert Everett believable as Sherlock Holmes. He seemed much too young and stupid. Of course I am comparing him to Jeremy Brett who in my opinion was the very best. Dr. Watson was fairly insipid. In fact the whole cast lacked spark. I also found the telephone and the constant cigarette smoking distracting. And while I know Holmes was an opium addict I didn't think that his addiction should have been given quite so much play.I hope that if Masterpiece Theatre decides to bring anymore Sherlock Holmes mysteries to our shores they find a better actor to play the part.