At the Movies: The Book of Eli

And here is the second half of the post-apocalyptic double feature: The Book of Eli.

Overall: 7.6

This is a decent - though not astonishing - action movie with a pretty good theme. Its religious content could've been far more challenging, but what is here may be all we can expect from a fearful Hollywood studio.

Plot Synopsis:

Years ago (in the film's timeline), a great war (presumably) destroyed the ozone layer, leading to the irradiation of the entire planet. Those few who survived blamed the Holy Bible for the disaster and subsequently burned as many copies of the Bible as they could acquire. At least one Bible, however, escaped this destruction; buried in a pile of rubble, it was discovered by Eli, a formerly ordinary man blinded by "the Flash" who was guided to the Bible's location by the voice of God.

For "thirty winters," Eli has been wandering westward across the continental U.S., living off whatever scraggly animals he can kill or whatever items he can scavenge from the dead. Eli's goal: to carry the Bible to the west coast, where God has told him it will do the most good. Along the way, he has been studying the Bible on a daily basis, gradually committing each passage to memory. Of course, the post-apocalyptic world in which Eli walks is cruel - the risk of being attacked by marauders is ever present - but God has blessed Eli with a preternatural ability to defend himself; Eli's aim is unfailingly accurate (despite his being blind), and his reflexes are lightening fast.

The true plot of this movie begins when Eli walks into a makeshift town to juice up his car battery (which he uses as an electricity source). There, he runs afoul of a local tyrant by the name of Carnegie, whose minions have been combing the desert looking for the very book Eli carries. Carnegie, you see, believes that the words of the Bible will enable him to exercise greater control over the people he commands.

In Carnegie's saloon of sorts, Eli is attacked by several of Carnegie's men. Watching from above, Carnegie is impressed by how Eli handles himself (remember the perfect aim and the crazy reflexes mentioned above) and decides that he wants Eli to join his little band. When Eli refuses, Carnegie forces him to stay the night in the hopes that his "hospitality" will change Eli's mind. While in captivity, Eli is provided with water for washing, food, and a young woman for his pleasure. The woman is Solara, whom Carnegie coerces into serving as a prostitute by threatening to hurt her blind mother, Claudia.

Naturally, Eli declines to take advantage of Solara's "services", but Solara begs to be allowed to stay, and Eli agrees. While in Eli's cell, Solara learns that Eli is literate and reads the Bible every day (though she doesn't recognize it as the Bible at the time); she also learns how to pray. The following morning, Solara tries to teach her mother the prayer she has learned, thus piquing Carnegie's interest. Carnegie grabs Claudia and demands that Solara tell him whether Eli has a book in his possession; fearing for her mother's life, Solara tells Carnegie that Eli has a book with a cross on the cover.

Carnegie immediately goes to confront Eli, but Eli has escaped from his cell. After picking up his battery in the gadget shop, Eli walks out into the street and is surrounded by Carnegie and his men. Carnegie tries to convince Eli to join forces with him, expressing his belief that Eli's Bible will help to restore order. Eli agrees that the Bible will indeed reinvigorate civilization, but not in Carnegie's hands. A gun fight ensues. Carnegie is shot in the leg, but Eli, still under God's protection, escapes uninjured. Carnegie's main henchman, Redridge, is impressed by Eli's apparent invincibility and lets him go.

Solara, on Claudia's urging, follows Eli into the desert and offers to show Eli where Carnegie gets his water if Eli will allow her to join him. Eli is reluctant to allow Solara to accompany him, but events force him to relent: Solara is nearly raped by a local group of marauders and Eli must come to her rescue. That night, Eli and Solara take refuge in an abandoned nuclear cooling tower. There, Solara learns a little more about Eli's background; she tries to convince Eli to allow her to see the Bible he carries, but Eli, suspicious, keeps it to himself.

Meanwhile, Carnegie and his men follow Eli and Solara in three salvaged vehicles, ultimately catching up with the pair at the home of an elderly couple who have resorted to cannibalism to survive. There is another gun fight (this time with some military artillery), and Eli and Solara are captured. Carnegie demands that Eli tell him where the Bible is hidden, threatening to kill Solara if Eli is not forthcoming. Eli tells Carnegie the Bible's location, and a triumphant Carnegie shoots Eli in the stomach and leaves him for dead. He takes Solara with him.

Solara, however, escapes by strangling the driver of the vehicle in which she is being held. As he now has the Bible in his possession, Carnegie decides to let her go. Solara goes back to the cannibals' now completely destroyed home to look for Eli, but he is already gone. She starts driving westward and finds Eli walking down the side of the road. Picking Eli up, Solara takes him to San Francisco, where they abandon the car on the Golden Gate Bridge, board a boat, and row out to Alcatraz. There, a group has been trying to recover the great works of civilization. When Eli informs the curator that he has a Bible, both Eli and Solara are welcomed with open arms. Eli then recites the entire Bible to Alcatraz's eager scribes, who eventually use a restored printing press to publish it for distribution. His mission now complete, Eli dies, and Solara, inspired by Eli, decides to return home to do some good.

In the meantime, Carnegie - who is beginning to succumb to an infection in his injured leg - finally manages to unlock the hardcopy of the Bible he took from Eli and discovers to his horror that it is written in Braille. He tries to force Claudia to read it to him, but Claudia, now empowered, refuses. Carnegie's mini-dictatorship subsequently collapses.

Writing: 7

This is a pretty good B-level action script. You do have to suspend your disbelief in several places. For example, I think it's unlikely that, thirty years after a global cataclysm that sends civilization back to, essentially, the Stone Age, one would be able to find enough functional batteries to power a first generation iPod - or enough gasoline and parts to fuel and maintain three armored vehicles.

On the other hand, some of the other supposed missteps that have been gleefully lambasted by hostile reviewers can be plausibly explained. For instance, one such reviewer has noted that it should not have taken thirty years for Eli to traverse the U.S. on foot. My response? It shouldn't have taken the Hebrews forty years to reach the Promised Land, but that's what happened. Why? Because God deliberately delayed their arrival to discipline the Hebrews for the Golden Calf incident and allow for a new generation to be born. God makes sure things happen at the appropriate time. In the case of Eli's wanderings, I'm sure God was giving his prophet the opportunity to commit the entire Bible to memory because He knew, in his Infinite Wisdom, that Eli's copy would be stolen. The upshot: some reviewers need to read the Bible and find out how God actually works.

Acting: 7.5

By far, it is Gary Oldman who puts in the strongest performance; his Carnegie is a deliciously evil, emotionally satisfying baddie. I was less impressed with Denzel. Since St. Elsewhere, I have always had a lot of respect for the man, but here, his Eli is a little too inscrutable - a little too stoic - to generate much interest. But then, I've never been a huge fan of the laconic male action hero, so that may be coloring my perception.

Regarding the supporting cast, I have no complaints. Also: yay, Pullo! I love you!

Production Values: 8

This movie is shot in a very traditional manner - there is no shaky cam, no lens flares, and very little in the way of directorial embellishment. In a B-grade action movie, this is entirely appropriate; in this genre, the direction should be invisible.

Message: 8

I'd like to thank Denzel Washington and the Hughes Brothers for giving it an honest try; this may in fact be the most Judeo-Christian-positive action flick we could ever hope to see produced by a major studio. The lead character hears the voice of God and heeds it, he is protected by God's power, and he prays and teaches others to do the same - and all of this is presented without one whiff of irony, a refreshing change of pace from the usual Hollywood depiction of religious folks - especially Christians - as knuckle-dragging Neanderthals and hypocrites. I do think, however, that both the positive and the negative reviews out there exaggerate when it comes to describing the religious content. With all this talk of "religious propaganda," I was really expecting the God element to be a good deal more overt than it actually was - and a good deal more challenging.

What claims does this movie make? I suppose the dominant claim has to do with the Bible itself: that it is one of the world's greatest works - a book powerful enough to rewrite history for good or ill depending on who wields it. Any honest student of history - religious or no - should recognize that such a claim is based on stone-cold facts. In the U.S. alone, the Bible has driven several major reform movements. Civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. (whom we will honor this Monday) quoted the Bible to argue for the full legal equality of Black Americans; so too did these leaders' abolitionist forebears. The Bible once inspired men to fight in the Crusades; it also inspired two Catholic saints to die as martyrs at Auschwitz. To deny that the Bible is one of the most important books in the history of mankind is tantamount to embracing the delusion that the sky is green. Thus, I don't consider this movie's reverence for the Bible to be particularly religious in nature; it is simply an acceptance of reality. Those reviewers who are claiming otherwise - and squealing like stuck pigs about it all the while - frankly need to get over it.

And what does this movie say regarding the Bible's message? Here, a little disappointingly, the writer skirts controversy. When Solara asks Eli what he has learned from the Bible, Eli essentially reiterates the Golden Rule. That's all fine and good - the Bible does teach us how to treat our fellow man with justice - but the Golden Rule isn't actually what makes the Bible unique. "Do unto others" is a maxim embraced by virtually everyone - it is a part of the natural law, not Revelation. No - what makes the Bible unique out of all of the world's religious writings is its claim that God entered history, becoming one of us in order to elevate the human person and save us all from sin. The text we use in our fifth grade Sunday school class puts it this way:

Because God has honored the human race by becoming one of us, we now have a greatness we did not have before. Our eyes, ears, hands, feet, and souls are greater gifts of God than ever before, now that he has had them too. Our sorrows and our joys have more dignity because Jesus experienced human joys and sorrows as well... Because God has become closer to us, we are now closer to God.

If Eli had told Solara that he took a bullet for her because he has learned that God, through the Incarnation, has made the human person all the more dignified, that would've been the most shocking moment in recent Hollywood history. Now, what we do get is certainly not objectionable - it doesn't conflict with Christian teaching in any way - but in comparison to the full Truth, it is rather bloodless.

Perhaps the most religious element of the movie is Eli's status as a protected prophet. But prophets are not an exclusive feature of the Christian religion; at least three of the world's major religions embrace the concept of a personal God who selects men to deliver his message to the ends of the Earth.

Bottom line, what religious content there is in this movie is incredibly tame - which makes it all the more astonishing that the Hughes Brothers had to warn their fellow movie-makers ahead of time that Eli's book is the Bible before proceeding with the project. Hollywood has fallen far indeed if such a tentative use of the Scripture is seen as a threat!