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Home - Film
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Prophet Sharing
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Washington plays a
futuristic warrior poet in The Book of Eli
by Ben Coffman
Several recent movies have taken a crack at depicting a post-apocalyptic world. In The Road, director John Hillcoat’s after-disaster America was dead and impossibly bleak, with its few remaining residents starving. 2012 showed us the shiny, happy version of the end of days in which the apocalypse served as an almost painless means of population control. And in the Hughes brothers’ The Book of Eli, we see the future as a dry, cratered landscape, where everyone dresses in Road Warrior chic — that is, heavy on fashion accessories.
When The Book of Eli begins, Eli (Denzel Washington) is hunting some sort of exotic, hairless cat to eat as his evening meal. Life is tough on the road, and as Eli’s fellow prophet Steve Perry once said, “The road ain’t no place to start a family.” Thus, Eli travels alone, his weapons and bible being his only companions. He’s determined to head west, a direction he’s been walking in for the past 30-some years. Yes, Eli is in desperate need of a compass.
Eventually, Eli arrives at a standard-issue wild west township. There, the erudite and book-loving Carnegie (Gary Oldman) runs the show, controlling a local gang of Mad Max rejects, as well as the town’s women and water supply. Carnegie, recognizing the power of scripture to further control the local population, has been desperately looking for a bible; all of which are believed to have been destroyed following the last world war — except, of course, for Eli’s copy.
Although the movie begins with promise, the final act dives southward. Attracted by Eli quoting scripture like Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction, the young Solara (played by an out-of-place Mila Kunis) joins Eli on his trek. Novelty appearances by Jennifer Beals (Flashdance) and Tom Waits round out the movie’s uneven feel.
Even while brutally hacking at the limbs of his enemies, Washington is every bit as charming as you’d expect. Oldman and Waits are equally entertaining, even if the Hughes brothers deemed the script less important than the brilliant fight scenes and the multitude of lens filters used by the cinematographer.
Creatively, The Book of Eli isn’t far from a two-hour, futuristic version of the television show “Kung Fu.” In the future, despite a shortage of highly prized KFC wet wipes and chapstick, there’s plenty of the three A’s: ass (kicking), ammo and artifice. But despite its stylized look and interesting cast, the movie is left wandering with no place to go.
GRADE: C |
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