The Book of Eli (2010)

Our rating: 3 out of 5

Rated: R

reviewed by Shannon H.
 

Ever wondered what society would look ten years from now? How about 30 years or more? The Book of Eli explores a post-apocalyptic civilization where clean water is scarce and machine guns are plentiful and the rarest thing in the world are books.
 
Eli (Denzel Washington) is a man on a mission. He has spent thirty years walking “to the West” with the only copy of the Bible (which he protects with his life) after a huge war that left much of the world looking like a cross between a junkyard and a desert. He is resourceful by hunting for his own food and foraging for anything of value; clothes, electronic goods, and most importantly, water. Unlike most of the inhabitants of this post-apocalyptic world, Eli is a pacifist by nature, only killing people who threaten his life and the book that he guards. Eli makes his way into a town and trades in a scarf and a pair of leather gloves to refill his canteen with water at a bar. After he is attacked over something slightly trivial, he manages to kill them all with his machete, catching the attention of the bar’s owner, Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man dead set on collecting books, especially rare ones.  Seeing that Eli is not like the other men, Carnegie puts him up with a room for the night. His wife Claudia (Jennifer Beals), who is blind, offers Eli some food. Carnegie sends Claudia’s daughter Solara (Mila Kunis) to have sex with the new visitor as a means of eliciting information from him. Eli, however, refuses to give in, and, instead, teaches Solara how to pray.
 
The next day, Eli leaves and Carnegie forces Solara to give him information about Eli and what he carries with him. Solara then admits Eli was carrying a special kind of book and immediately, Carnegie and his goons go after Eli. Solara joins up with Eli in leaving the desolate town and they hole themselves up in a home owned by a couple of alleged cannibals. Carnegie, now walking with a limp after being shot in the leg, tracks them down and demands Eli hand over the book or he will kill Solara. Stripped of his weapons, Eli must make a choice between keeping his Bible safe or keeping Solara alive.
 
The Book of Eli contains mild sexual content. It is implied that some women are prostitutes, serving the men of a desolate town. A woman is beaten, raped, and left to die (a brief shot of her bare breasts are shown; the rape scene is not graphic). Foul language includes a few scattered f-words, abuses of deity, and other curse words. The violence is not excessive but it isn’t moderate either; there are scenes of people shooting at each other. A man slices someone's hand off and then runs him through with a machete (the scene is slightly graphic as blood seeps from the man’s wrist). The same man fights off several thugs, cutting and stabbing them as he’s being attacked. A man is shot in the leg and is later seen in the film with it wrapped in bandages (there is a blood stain on the bandages). A woman is captured and put in the back of a van where she sneaks up on the driver and chokes him with a rope. In the next scene, the man in the passenger side is seen with a machete in his chest (he stumbles out of the van and dies). It is implied an elderly couple kill and eat visitors that come to their home. A man kills a room full of angry thugs. Another man threatens the life of a young girl and his own wife in exchange for valuable information. A woman rolls a live hand grenade under a van, which explodes, killing everyone inside (other than the explosion, it’s not graphic). A man is shot in his side and later dies of his wounds. A man shoots a cat with a bow and arrow and later cooks it for dinner. A few decomposing corpses are seen in various parts of the film.
 
While the film is brutal, it does have a great deal of spiritual themes in it. Eli is a believer in the Bible and seeks to protect the only copy known to mankind. When Solara joins him on his journey westward, he teaches her about Psalms 23 and how it relates to his struggle to stay alive. He hopes that one day, mankind will learn about God and His love for us amid the hopeless, godless society that he lives in. When Solara asks the specifics of how Eli expects to get to his destination, he responds that he walks “by faith and not by sight” and that a higher power is guiding him. Eli also recites 2 Timothy 4:7-8, summarizing his journey. At first, I felt Eli was a hypocrite; he was a professing Christian while killing others but it becomes clear that he is acting in self-defense and he does not enjoy killing other people. This film is good; it is well-made and has a consistent plot line. The best acting by far goes to Gary Oldman as Carnegie. He is an evil and shameless man who intends to use the Bible for selfish reasons. Denzel Washington’s Eli is a perfect contrast; a peaceful man that only attacks when provoked to protect mankind’s only Hope (Washington did an excellent job). My problem with the film lies in the objective content; half of it could’ve been eliminated and it would’ve probably garnered a PG-13 rating. The profanity was unnecessary; likewise with some of the graphic content and the references to cannibalism. I would recommend it to a 15-and-older Christian audience but only for those who aren’t sensitive to decapitation violence.