Review: The Book of Eli

Set in a post-apocalyptic landscape (most of the Earth being destroyed via nuclear catastrophe), Denzel Washington plays the title character in possession of the title tome as he arrives in a small, Old West-style town. His arrival brings him to the attention of Carnegie (Gary Oldman), the town’s leader (i.e. Tyrant). After sending Solara (Mila Kunis) the barmaid daughter of his blind lover/slave Claudia (Jennifer Beals- whose character’s blindness is as a result of the nuclear apocalypse) to nose around Eli’s hotel room and belongings, he takes a particular interest in the book Eli is carrying with him, a book he’s apparently been searching many years for. In fact, he is completely obsessed with obtaining it by any means necessary. But you see, Eli’s on a special mission, and no one, especially Carnegie is going to get in his way. Basically, if you mess with him, it’s at your own peril. He escapes the town into the desert landscape with Solara, whilst Carnegie and his men go after them. Ray Stevenson plays Carnegie’s chief henchman, who has designs on Kunis, Malcolm McDowell plays a librarian/historian, Tom Waits turns up as a pawn shop owner/trader, and Michael Gambon plays an old survivalist with a fondness for tea, and with a whole lotta weaponry and a whole lot of crazy going on (Hint: Have you seen “Motel Hell”?).

Equal parts Kevin Costner post-apocalyptic misfire and “Yojimbo” variant, this 2010 offering from The Hughes Brothers (“Menace II Society”, “Dead Presidents”, “From Hell”) is heavy-handed in messaging (not to mention about 5-10 years too late anyway), dour in tone and even more depressing in visual design. Basically, it’s not much good and it certainly isn’t much fun. In fact, it ends up looking like “Mad Max” done wrong.

The Hughes’ seem to be keen on making films with a strong visual design, but the one adopted here is all wrong. After a visually striking (if stylistically filtered- an unfortunate trend in Hughes Brothers films) opening, the cinematography by Don Burgess (“Blind Fury”, “Forrest Gump”, “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines”) is quite possibly the ugliest, most muted, brown and murky-looking I’ve ever seen. In fact, the only thing going for it visually is that despite being murky, the lighting is decent enough that it’s not too dark to see. It’s just so unnecessary, I honestly don’t understand how cinematography has gotten to this completely counter-productive point. It’s a shame, because the actual landscape in the film would be truly awe-inspiring if we could only see it in colour...or colours, to be exact. In fact, shooting it in traditional B&W would work too, as it can still have a vibrancy to it, but not this desaturated, sepia-toned nonsense. I hate it, because the rest of the film’s visuals would work well-enough on their own to set the world and tone of the film (At least “From Hell” had a rich, thick, foggy atmosphere to it, despite the colour filters). The locations would be amazing...if Mr. Burgess didn’t suffer a major case of diarrhoea on set. Oh, and screw you for making Mila Kunis look like she’s covered in poop. Why would you do that? Why? And the look isn’t even consistent, at one point we get a shot of the moon-lit sky and it’s entirely blue, whilst the ground below it, lit by a small campfire is entirely amber, and during the day scenes the sunlit sky is entirely brown. What? I’ve already mentioned in previous reviews how nonsensical it is that one source of light can change the colour of an entire room or space (it rarely works like that unless it’s like a photo lab/dark room), but more than anything this just proves that it’s all artifice...annoying artifice at that.

In addition to the fact that we don’t need any more variants on Akira Kurosawa flicks, this storyline is completely heavy-handed and predictable at every turn. I mean, if you can’t work out exactly what book Washington is reading (It’s not “Everybody Poops”, in case you were wondering), and if you can’t work out the twist with his character...you’re clearly not very observant. Maybe pop-up books are more your speed. Washington’s performance itself doesn’t exactly telegraph the twist with his character in the way other actors playing such characters have in other films, but some of what his character says and does in the film certainly gives it away (if you get my meaning). I think most people just caught up in the fact that Denzel seems to do things that would be somewhat implausible under the circumstances. That doesn’t make the twist harder to guess, in my opinion (hints are dropped throughout, like I said), it just makes it a whole lot dumber. Denzel can certainly handle these dour sorts of roles, but to be honest, I don’t think it’s to his best advantage, outside of maybe “The Hurricane” and “Flight”. And by best advantage, I mean using his chief asset: his charisma, as this part doesn’t really call for any. I would’ve rather seen someone like Forest Whitaker in the role, personally, as he could’ve played the dour role but with some pathos in there somewhere too.

Gary Oldman, meanwhile, has only ever given two performances worth a damn in his whole schizophrenic career. This boring performance isn’t either of the two (I’m talking about “State of Grace” and maybe “Sid and Nancy”). It seemed to me like Oldman was doing a Mickey Rourke impersonation here, and sadly not “The Wrestler”, which was one of Mickey’s few good performances. Strangely enough, it’s not Oldman but Michael Gambon with the weirdest role in the film. He’s...inexplicable to say the least. Perhaps surprisingly, the best performance in the film comes from Jennifer Beals, although the part is rather clichéd.

The other thing that really bothered me about the film is that in addition to borrowing elements of “Yojimbo” for the story, The Hughes’ have tried to give the film an Old West/Spaghetti Western vibe, ala “A Fistful of Dollars”, which of course was a remake of “Yojimbo”. The problem is that visually, the timeline seems odd. It’s post-nuclear, and yet everything in this town has regressed to the Old West? The low-tech regression doesn’t bother me (it makes sense to an extent), but it’s obvious that the Western motif was chosen just to prove what smart arses the filmmakers are. But all it goes to prove is that the Hughes Brothers are not Sergio Leone, let alone Akira Kurosawa. Aside from Beals’ fine work, there is a cool five-on-one fight scene with a machete and a chainsaw....but even then The Hughes’ bugger it up by shooting it in silhouette! Sure, do some of it like that, but doing the whole scene like that seems utterly pointless to me.

It’s an ugly, unexciting and uninteresting film, with more endings than “Return of the King” as well (including a cameo by Malcolm McDowell essentially playing his “Doomsday” character with different intentions). I’m also not sure if its allegoric message really works, after a moment’s thought. I get that the Oldman character would use the book for evil purposes, but considering Denzel’s character is pretty violent too, I’m not sure if he’s any less hypocritical. And yet I don’t think the film is exactly championing an ultra right-wing viewpoint (as some have suggested), either. I just think it’s merely something that the screenwriter hasn’t properly thought out the implications of. The screenplay is by Gary Whitta (who later wrote the story for “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”), surprisingly not giving credit to either Leone or Kurosawa, or even Kevin Costner or George Miller for that matter. There’s also no credit to Anthony Peckham, who rewrote Whitta’s script apparently, despite Whitta ultimately getting the credit.

If not for a shocking mistake in cinematography and tone, this film might’ve been decent. It’s probably someone’s idea of a good film, just not mine. It’s horrendously dull.

Rating: C-