Rainy Saturday afternoon today and so we had nothing much to do but sleep and eat and - watch a movie! Keith wanted to watch Book of Eli and since I told him I had that DVD, he pestered us to watch it and so we did. After eating breakfast and way before it was time to cook lunch, we went upstairs to our room and watched it with our PC. The story is about Eli (played by Denzel Washington) set in a world torn apart by war. Denzel is cast here as a drifter/survivor with uncanny skills and abilities that enabled him to fend off attackers and cannibals for the past thirty years. He has long been traveling to the West to guard a ‘sacred book’ which he believed he must bring to someone…somewhere. Along the way, he meets criminals and bandits killing and raping anyone just to survive in order to get some food, water or other supplies that can be traded (it seems money is not a commodity anymore in this future)
While Eli enters a town to get some water and have his ipod recharged he gets into a scuffle with a gang of bad men headed by a powerful man named Carnegie (played by Gary Oldman). Carnegie was impressed by Eli’s fighting skills so he offers him a place in his gang but Eli declines. Carnegie insists and tries to send Solara (Mila Kunis) to sleep with Eli to convince him to stay. But still Eli refused and instead teaches Solara to pray and shared his meal with her. The next day, when Solara tries to repeat the prayer with his mother, she also inadvertently revealed that Eli has been reading a book – THE BOOK - which Carnegie had been searching for so long because he wants to use the Bible to maintain his power and keep his town under control. And so he runs after Eli. They try to shoot Eli but they miss and Eli ends up killing most of his men before walking nonchalantly away.
Solara follows Eli on his journey and was almost raped by two thugs until Eli came along to save her. They continue traveling West and in their talks, Solara discovers that Eli is guided by a voice in his head that had whispered to him where to find the last remaining Bible in the world and where to bring it. They then visit a house with an elderly couple who they soon realize were cannibals who eat their visitors so they get up to leave but they see that Carnegie and his men have caught up with them. The old couple helps them to fend off the attackers and bring out an impressive arsenal of weapons. But they were no match for Carnegie’s weapons so the old couple got killed and half of their house got torn down. Carnegie succeeds in getting the book and shoots Eli in the stomach before taking off with the book and Solara. But Solara kills the driver and hurls a grenade at the third vehicle. Rather than taking after her, Carnegie lets her go because they have no more fuel left. Besides he already has the book, and that’s all that mattered to him.
Solara finds Eli still walking West despite his gunshot wound and they head to the Golden Gate Bridge (or what’s left of it) and take a boat to the island of Alcatraz. Inside, Eli is met by a curator of pre-war items who gets excited upon learning that Eli had in his possession a King James Bible. Eli then asks him to produce a paper and pen then proceeded to recite the bible word for word having memorized it for the last 30 years. Meanwhile, back in town Carnegie discovers that the Bible is locked and so he gets the Engineer to open it for him, when he finally gets it open he discovers that the entire book is in Braille…and that Eli is blind. He tried to get his wife Claudia (also blind) to read it for him but she lies and says she has forgotten how. Carnegie flies into a rage, having something he has longed for so near and yet he can’t have it. He falls into despair as his bar is looted by hoodlums since he no longer has enough men to protect him because most have died in his quest for the book.
Eli, on the other hand, finishes reciting the Bible and says one last prayer for Solara and the world before he dies. Eli is buried in a courtyard as printing of the Bible commences. Solara, meanwhile visits Eli in his grave for the last time before setting off with his machete and Ipod to embark on her own adventure. In all, the film was very good - the scenes depicting the post-apocalyptic future was in black and white and very nicely done, even the action scenes though violent were swift and artistic. But what’s amazing was the fact that Eli was blind was only revealed in the last part of the movie…a very nice twist indeed!
[photo grabbed from IMDB]
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