Denzel Washington has stepped where few A-listers dare tread – religion. He stars in and produced this hard hitting morality tale, a seriously devout story about he protection of the only Bible that exists in a post- apocalyptic future. Salvation is possible only through the word of God – that’s the theme and it is embraced not just by the good guy but also by the bad guy.
That’s a radical recipe for a big budget film 2010, light years away from the usual Hollywood thinking that religion is an anathema to movie house audiences. Someone besides Mel Gibson thinks it matters. There’s a lot on the line here including the A-list star, A-list producer Joel Silver and a nice budget.
A disaster has taken place 30 years before we meet Eli, which burned off most of the earth’s vegetation, water, and life forms. He is living on cat but mostly starves like the rest of the population. Despite the absence of the basics of human existence – water and food - the human species has rebounded, and a new generation of people – who never saw a television, is forging a life out of dust and nothingness. We don’t learn what the disaster was but it looks like a big ass nuclear bomb hit, if I know my movies.
Washington plays Eli, a mysterious wanderer who holds the only existing copy of the St James Bible. God has told him to take it to ‘the west’ and that’s his mission – if he can get by the dangers that lurk in the dusty desert. There are roving gangs of thugs who will kill to eat the body.
Eli is surprised to find a small town on the road going west, led by a western style ‘boss’ Carnegie (Gary Oldman). Carnegie wants what Eli has - redemption – through whatever means possible – and the Bible. He remembers how powerful the Bible was ‘before’ and now he will kill to get it. The Bible as a reason to kill. Sounds Biblical. Eli will liberate the enslaved females (Mila Kunis and Jennifer Beales) living under the thumb of the bad guy. His passion to fulfil his bond with God fires his awesome fighting powers and defence instincts.
The film is total instant gratification the way westerns are. Eli knocks heads like a lunatic, personally dispatching endless criminals. The redemption seeker and his posse, road thugs, crazies and a suspicious elderly couple give Eli plenty to worry about.
It’s not just a hyped up revenge fantasy, it’s an emphatic bird flipped in the face of consumerism (Eli: “People had too much before. They threw away things they kill for now”).
The film has a hard edged sepia look, reminiscent and harsh enough to be whatever future can be imagined. The environment recalls Terminator 2 and current Middle East war in which dust is a dangerous character.
Eli is an action-packed adventure with a moral angle, as all good westerns, with a leaf taken from Mel Gibson’s other hit, the dusty Road Warrior. The noble loner is an appealing character especially if he is on a mission. Eli is a survival spectacle, Grand Guignol theatre, an old fashioned western and familiar looking war story re-imagined by the Hughes brothers for an economically worn out world. The idea of good versus evil has rarely been so obvious in a film, and at times it is riveting.
But just a few questions - how do people go for weeks at a time without water in the burning desert wearing heavy clothes and weapons? What makes Eli such a great fighter considering, well, you’ll see? Why does Jennifer Beals’ makeup look so terrific if her character hasn’t shampooed in 30 years?
I also think that there are too many holes in the plot but I liked it because I think the black and white atmosphere was very good for this kind of film. The final scene when the book is between other books having no importance is in my opinion the actual saying of this film. Go go go.
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