Single film Sunday

I was toying with also catching 44 Inch Chest today, but I just couldn’t be bothered leaving the house! I did make the effort to see The Book of Eli, though, and glad I did.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: A lone man walks across the post-apocalyptic US carrying a book which is very much in demand – and not just from nice people.

First off, although filmed in a similar style to The Road which I saw a few days ago this is a hugely different film. For a start it seems to have some kind of plot. There are questions that as a film-viewer you feel you want to know the answers to. There is action. There are some nice snippets of dialogue.

All of these were missing from The Road which is, in fairness, a very different film.

The lead in this case is Denzel Washington who plays the titular Eli as a monosyllabic hard nut who just wants to get on with his little stroll to deliver a package. Bad guy duties go to the excellent Gary Oldman who carries out the manic, power-crazed role as well as would be expected.

Eli is carrying a book (no surprise there) to “the west” and Oldman decides he wants it. It’s a powerful book and what it is won’t come as a shock. What this leads to is a good bit of discussion over how the book has and will be used – how and why, and the effects it has had pre-war and within the society after it.

There are obviously going to be comparisons to the Mad Max films, but given that there are only so many ways you can portray a post-nuclear wilderness. Mel Gibson‘s films pretty much designed the template for any that were to follow, after all.

I definitely won’t spoil the twist at the end, and it’s a good one, but it does drag a bit. The final revelation is made, you get the “joke”… and then there’s more. That, to me, was the only major weak part of the movie. Other than that, it’s captivating and well-filmed. Visually, it’s excellent with a good use of real sets and what must be post-film effects. How else you’d get the Golden Gate Bridge in that state I don’t know.

If you’re only going to see one film set after a nuclear holocaust this month, make it The Book of Eli.

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