Florala

Issue date: 1/14/10 Section: Life

Media Credit: photo courtesy Warner Brothers press release

In the future, according to "The Book of Eli," we'll all dress like we're in a Nine Inch Nails video. It is written.

Most everyone wears goggles and leather in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of "The Book of Eli." A meteorite and a subsequent war 30 years earlier has scorched the Earth and the population.

Across this charred land strides our Christian cowboy, Eli (Denzel Washington), a mysterious, solitary man who carries the last remaining Bible in his backpack. He also carries a gleaming silver knife and a shotgun, both of which he's expert with.

Like a prophet, he has heard God's voice in his head and he walks West with divine determination. He says to himself: "Stay on the path."

After "the flash" of the cataclysm that rocked the Earth, many blamed the troubles on religion. All the books were burned, making the few that remain precious cargo indeed.

Those born after this event (and this might not seem so futuristic) don't have any knowledge of books - what they mean or how to read them. The elders are the exception, those who lived "before." Among them is Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a villainous man who presides over the town Eli wanders into.

He sends his minions out in search of a Bible, though all they can do is return with "The Da Vinci Code" - which apparently even meteorites can't destroy. An intellectual (we first meet him reading a biography of Mussolini), Carnegie believes the Bible's power will make him a great leader: "It's a weapon," he says.

When Eli and Carnegie meet, much fighting ensues. A young woman, Solara (Mila Kunis), gets roped into the fracas. Tom Waits makes a good cameo as a simple, somewhat quirky shopkeeper.

"The Book of Eli" is the first movie from Albert and Allen Hughes - the filmmaking brothers of "From Hell" and "Menace II Society" - in nine years.

The Hughes brothers don't let nary a bullet or arrow fly without sending their cameras behind to track it in slow-motion. That such a Christian-themed film enthralls in violence so much is obviously contradictory to its message of civilization saved by the Bible.

Cinematographer Don Burgess has drained the film to a sepia. What breathes life into "The Book of Eli" is the performances, most notably by Washington and Oldman.

It's fun to see Oldman, made relatively boring in the Batman films, return to full, theatrical villain mode. He's not over-the-top like he was in "The Professional," but a rational, intelligent survivor - a frustrated dictator. He wants order, only he wants to control it.

Washington, too, is in his wheelhouse. Ever able to play a man with purpose, he propels the film on a straightforward, linear path: a charismatic man-of-few-words with a whole lot of them in his sack.

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