movies download The Book of Eli — Film Review
Initially, I was not expecting to see such great comments from the public. I was however expecting the movie critics to not give God his due. I can only say this. God will get his word across one way or another. The continued use of the least likely subject to do his will astounds even the devil. I took my children to see this movie and we will see it again. We need more movies like this.
As post-apocalyptic movie fiction goes, “The Book of Eli” is not a crowd-pleaser like the “Mad Max” series nor silly like any of the “Planet of the Apes” films. This film, the first from the Hughes Brothers in nearly nine years, instead is an intense, surprisingly serious study of a man making his way through a wilderness of catastrophic destruction and human cruelty like a latter-day prophet. An overlay of spiritual themes doesn’t always work, but “Eli” is that rare Hollywood film that posits a Christian man as its hero.
The story is couched in neo-Western terms — a solitary gunman comes to a town and confronts the corrupt sheriff and his maniacal deputies — so the movie fits comfortably within the confines of mainstream studio moviemaking. And Denzel Washington is one of the few Hollywood stars who can pull off a larger-than-life character who can dispatch a gang of cutthroats with a nasty blade yet maintain an air of saintliness.
Boxoffice should be above average for this Warner Bros. release. Don’t be surprised if the film is embraced by Christian filmgoers as the Holy Bible is seen as the point from which a new civilization can take shape.
Allen and Albert Hughes situate their story in an environment informed by graphic-novel imagery. Landscapes are stark, and characters strike poses. Working with cinematographer Don Burgess, they frequently drain the color from desolate stretches of desert (with New Mexico doing the honors). Roads are lined with ruined remnants of a prior civilization, the one before a “Flash” — which occurred during the last war — tore a hole in the sky and brought fatal, scorching light onto the Earth.
As in “Mad Max,” anarchy rules, with mayhem, murder and rape seen as routine events. Washington’s Eli claims to have walked west for 30 years, but everything looks like the bomb dropped only last month. No one has even bothered to bury bodies or develop any infrastructure.
