“Directed by the Hughes brothers (“From Hell,” “Dead Presidents“), “The Book of Eli” starts strong and strange with a man hunting in the ash-blasted barrens of a ruined world. That strength and strangeness continue for a while, with the Hughes’ style alone powerful enough to squeeze a few drops of juice from the postapocalyptic pop-culture pulp we’ve seen in films from “The Road Warrior” to “The Road.”
“The Book of Eli” at first resembles nothing less than a Sergio Leone film: Every shot feels like it’s filmed from a distance of two inches or two miles, with nothing in-between. Dusty drifter Eli (Denzel Washington) is traveling out of the wasteland with moral might, a secret piece of precious cargo and a swift-flashing knife. That Western feel stays strong through a number of scenes: an ambush, arriving in town, meeting the corrupt ruler of a community that is only slightly better than nothing.
But “The Book of Eli” loses its way not long after its big reveal, which the film’s stars and advertising have already given away, so I feel no compunction in talking about it. The title volume is a Bible. Eli needs to take it west, while the ruler of the shabby, scary town Eli stumbles into, Gary Oldman‘s Carnegie, has been looking for one for a while. It seems all but one Bible were destroyed in the wake of the war, and Carnegie wants to use the good book for bad purposes, to help motivate and rationalize his grander plans. “It’s not a book,” he roars to his subordinates, including the craggy, cagey Refridge (Ray Stevenson). “It’s a weapon!” (Sci-fi fans will spot plots and themes from “A Canticle for Leibowitz” and “Fahrenheit 451″ between the lines of “The Book of Eli,” and they won’t be wrong to see them.)”
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