"The Book of Eli"
(2010, Albert and Allen Hughes, USA)
Average Contributor Rating: .

While it has been some years since The Hughes Brothers gave us a film, that fact is fairly irrelevant as this reviewer has not seen anything else they have done. The Book of Eli is a post-apocalyptic action drama with pseudo-religious pretensions. It's a film which manages to be both tiresomely ordinary, and oddly inventive, simultaneously. Denzel Washington stars as the titular Eli, with Mila Kunis as the attractive hanger-on Solera. Meanwhile Gary Oldman is back on bad guy duties, with welcome cameos from Tom Waits and Malcolm McDowell. There's a small part as Gary Oldman's lover/moll/captive blind woman for Jennifer Beals (what a feeling...) too. What could have been a plodding trek in which, to misappropriate a criticism, we just see people walking a lot, turns out to be a film with at least a good veneer of interest. Certainly, scratch deep enough and the weak structure shows itself, but enjoy it for what it is, and you shouldn't be disappointed.

There are many things in this film which are never specified initially. The cause of the apocalypse is never mentioned explicitly; the name of the titular book is never spoken of by title until the end (even though its identity is blatantly obvious - more of this later); Eli's name, inexplicably, is never actually known for sure until the final act such that for much of we double guess as to whether Denzel actually is Eli, or perhaps some post-apocalyptic prophet. Things in this film are not as they seem, and this all helps to maintain interest in what is, save for fits and spurts of an actionless film. Certainly when the action comes, it is quick, and brutal (and back-lit, for that lower certification), but it happens all too infrequently. The film is geographically challenged. The apocalypse seems to have shorn humanity of its ability to act, with the exception of Mr Washington, too. Still, what saves this film, for me, is in its relationship with religion.

Religion often gets one of two clear-cut representations on film. It's either eeeeeeeeeevil, the work of madmen and murderers. Or it's glorified beyond compare, where the protagonists are morally untouchable. The Book of Eli seems to straddle both camps here. The apocalypse, in the only allusion to its cause, seems to be religiously effected, as all known copies of the bible (for that is the titular book) were destroyed after the fact. In this way, it would seem, religion is bad. Similarly, Oldman's bad guy (one of the few older characters to have lived before the apocalypse) seeks the bible because he knows it holds power, and with that power he might control what vestiges of humanity remain. (Why anyone would want such a thankless task is beyond the remit of the film to explain.) So, is this saying that religion is bad? Is the desire for the power that the bible unquestionably once held and, in this film's world, will hold again, saying that the bible itself is bad, or that the people who misinterpret it, or use it to their own ends are bad? Is then the film a critique of dogmatic religious belief while maintaining a faithfulness in the word of the bible as an interpretation of God's word? In Eli's constant daily reading of the bible in his possession, the singularity of his God-inspired need to undergo the journey he is taking, and in the strength he obtains from it, is the film reaffirming the power of the bible when in the right hands? When taken allegorically, rather than literally, can true strength be gained from it? Am I reading far too much into what is to all intents and purposes a Hollywood blockbuster?

Naturally these are huge questions, and the film is only hinting at these things. Nevertheless for a Hollywood film to even approach issues like this is reassuring - if it encourages positive discourse, then it cannot be a bad thing. Blind dogmatic belief in the literal word, the film seems to suggest, will bring about the apocalypse (or, to use another word, "the revelation") but an open mind can achieve great things. For those who have not seen the film, and wish to avoid spoilerific references, turn away now. For the rest, I will point you in the direction of Isaiah 29: 18 - "In that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book, And the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness." An appropriate quote that seems to fit the film quite well.

For all this discourse, despite these questions the film brought up for me, the film itself falls short of excellent. The lacklustre plotting, third-rate acting, and plot-holes drop it to merely good. . TP.
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