Being as I am a Sherlock Holmes enthusiast, I find very fascinating the idea of having the detective investigating the infamous Ripper murders. It is an idea that never occurred to Doyle or, at least, he never materialised on paper. The first Holmes adventure, A Study in Scarlet, came out in 1887, just one year before the murders. This is an impeccably atmospheric depiction of Victorian London with a top-notch cast of the sort you will hardly see in a film today, and the sequence of events is so suspenseful that keeps you engaged until the very end.But you mustn't take the conspiracy theory seriously, because it is totally ludicrous. I have never read the Stephen Knight book from which this film borrows the idea of the Royal family and the Freemasons' association with the mysterious killer or killers. But although it sounds fascinating and there must be people who truly believe it, when you think a little about it you realise its absurdity. The heir to the throne falling for a commoner and marrying her in secret? A so high and mighty a person as a Victorian royal could be, knowing that if the affair ever came to the public knowledge the Monarchy would be ruined? He might seduce her, (after all, many kings in the past used to have mistresses and they fathered bastards), but never get mixed-up with the girl to the point of marrying her. That is totally preposterous. And then, how the conspirators did know whom the girl had revealed her secret to? She moved among the East End crowds and could have told just anyone. How could the murderers know which persons in particular she had been talking to so they could silence them forever? Nevertheless, despite all of these questions that make the famous conspiracy theory totally implausible, if we watch the film just as the piece of entertainment it is, with a fascinating blend of fiction with real-life characters of the Ripper's time (Sir Charles Warren, Robert Lees, Mary Kelly and the Prime Minister Lord Salisbury), this is an excellent suspense film to kill a couple of hours on a Saturday night.
Review of Murder by Decree
