Mad Max meets The Equalizer, as Denzel Washington makes his way through a post apocalyptic America, brutally taking out all who get in his way, and occasionally helping people out along the way. It’s a quandary of mixed ethics.
The Book Of Eli a strong movie, with powerful emotive sound effects, targeted towards impressionable Christians, especially young black Americans. It gives a warped impression of what Christianity is about, being sure to push King James’s bible as the unblemished word of God, and trying to link earplug-fed music listening to the ways of an alert & ready-for-anything holyman, which is quite a contradiction, the likes of which take many forms in this movie.
Deceitful messages aside, it’s quite a powerful movie. If you can take the details with a pinch of salt, it can be quite moving and motivational in a good way. In this way it’s very much like The Matrix, spiritually & philosophically, which equally gave the impression of something that it didn’t deliver, while dressing it all up in a powerful, convincing manner.
Cast
Denzel Washington is made for his role in The Book Of Eli – he does an outstanding job here. He practically made & carried the whole movie – not many actors could do that so convincingly.
Mila Kunis does alright as the lead female character called Solara, and Jennifer Beals does alright as her mother, Claudia.
Gary Oldman plays the leader of the bad guys – I wouldn’t have picked him to lead a savage post-apocalyptic community – in reality someone so snotty nosed wouldn’t last long – but in this movie he plays a book-reading kind of power-hungry leader, so it’s kind of believable – he does a respectable job, but it’s still a stretch to imagine such a character surviving in such a position at such a time & place. A more powerfully built man with an intellectual side, would probably be more believable. Unless he were just a puppet being fed supplies and told what to do by his unseen masters – Gary Oldman actually fits the bill perfectly for something like that, come to think of it, but there was no such detail to the script here.
Ray Stevenson does alright as the chief muscle of Gary Oldman’s cartel. Nothing spectacular, but sufficient. His character is mean but slightly educated, and shows flashes of compassion – just the kind of character who I think should have been the leader of the bad guys, but not necessarily played by this actor who probably doesn’t carry enough of an aura for that role.
Evan Jones puts in a strong performance as a ruthless thug in the position of an expendable team leader. He probably deserved a bigger role in this movie.
This is not really a movie for frequent rewatching, due to its simple but powerful plot when you haven’t seen it in a while – the powerful effect is not nearly so effective when you remember much of what’s to come – it can get quite boring then. Quite the opposite to Shanghai Noon (starring Jackie Chan) for example, since Shanghai Noon never had a powerful vibe, but is so action-packed and comedic making it quite rewatch-friendly.