Released April 15, 2010
Post apocalyptic movies are all the rage (The Road, Children of Men) and why not – there’s few concepts that are inherently dramatic and provide the platform for existential angst. There’s plenty of the latter in the latest movie from the Hughes Brothers (Menace II Society, From Hell), though the point of its confused religious grandstanding is anyone’s guess.
Eli, the man-with-no-name wandering though the generic but oddly beautiful American wasteland, is played by a stoic Denzel Washington. He’s a wizened old survivor who’s become adept at dispatching cannibalistic thugs with his workhorse blade slung over his shoulder. He needs it, especially, to ward off the aggressive Carnegie (Gary Oldman) who launders over a ramshackle town like Ian McShane’s Al Swearengen in Deadwood. Carnegie may delve into a Mussolini biography and have a paperback copy of the Da Vinci Code on his desk, but what he’s really after is the crucifix-adorned book in Eli’s possession. It doesn’t take a great leap of faith to guess the book’s subject and, as per the historical precedent, The Book of Eli follows the battle over this divine text, complete with wildly excessive, but gloriously stylish action scenes.
For two-thirds of its length Eli maintains this enjoyable B-movie Western vibe, replete with a classic high-noon style standoff. But it then turns to serious philosophizing and final act twists which are simply baffling. These WTF moments, weirdly, do not commit the M. Night sin of invalidating all that happened prior, but just act to make it more fascinating; The Book of Eli is nothing if not ambitious. The ideas are silly, but the oddball sincerity is kind of charming, and there’s a stylized exuberance to the images seemingly inspired by graphic novels.
Aside from Forgetting Sarah Marshall (and, presently, Date Night), the very pretty Mila Kunis often feels miscast. Here, her young Solara, a woman intrigued by Eli’s sturdy conviction, is an odd foil for the Washington’s grizzled survivor. A hoot, though, are Michael Gambon and Frances de la Tour as a couple of cannibalistic outlanders.
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