Release Date: January 15, 2010

(out of 4)

The Book of Eli is post-apocalyptic sci-fi with a drifting hero (with an initial undisclosed purpose) travelling west, and he is embodied by none other than Denzel Washington as the title character. This is a violent and graphic film, with gray skies and brown deserts, desaturated from realistic colors to the point that some of the visuals look black & white. In an early deadly encounter as Eli faces off some homicidal scavengers underneath a bridge, it is filmed in high contrast so the actors are pitch-black while the desolate landscape serves as backdrop.

Interesting how much more involving this opening action scene are in comparison to other movies of this nature. This probably has to do with a steady and fixed camera where you can appreciate the elaborate choreography taking place before your eyes. There are no choppy and chaotic editing techniques, and for an abundance of the movie, you can sense the filmmakers’ disciplined strategy.

This is the fifth film by the Hughes Brothers (“Menace II Society,” “From Hell”) who if anything depend upon a regimented style. But enough about them, let’s go onto the story. As if it was the old west once again, Eli stumbles into a town to do some trades with the intent to immediately get the hell out of there. It is amusing that in the future, KFC wet napkin packets carry a certain value. Eli makes the wrong decision to enter the local pub to get some water and soon enough Carnegie (Gary Oldman), the lord of the town, wants Eli to join his side and work for him.

Tension of the story persuasively arises when Carnegie makes any threat or coercion to get Eli to stay. Eli just wants to head for the road and a new girl, the barmaid, Solara (Mila Kunis, with improbably perfect skin) wants to accompany him. The story structure gets routine – one band of baddies chase the good guys down in the desert that all leads to the inevitable shoot-out. But the movie deserves a nod for creating a shoot-out that is technically unique, with the camera doing an unbroken, virtual figure-8 camera loop-around.

Second act violence is all triggered by the Carnegie character. But Oldman suggests something interesting with his character, he makes Carnegie a man who you once believed was good until he lost his sanity and corrupted himself with lordly power, but he is literate and cultivated man in contrast to a wasteland of degenerates. Oldman’s hook on the character is subtle, and the movie doesn’t rest to contemplate this idea thoroughly, but if you look deep you will see it. This is not to take away anything from Washington who is terrific as this saintly, baddass and a self-appointed apostle. An apostle with a gun, if this is something you can accept.

Maybe Eli becomes something more than an apostle though, it’s up for debate. The conclusion of the movie is actually very bold. It goes further, into more transcendent territory, than the usual post-apocalyptic movie. This is a surprise for a movie coming out in January, where studios unleash their dogs. This is a movie that is not a dog, but you still have to chew on some preposterous stuff. Such as, why do roughnecks with only pipes and hacksaws approach Eli, who clearly has a gun? Why does Solara choose such an inopportune moment to recite a prayer? And what’s with that laughable final twist, revealed in ultra-tight close-up of Eli, that is anything but gratuitous?

Still, genre fans are going to eat this up and appreciate its evocative visual style as well as for the reflective religious elements. It is uncommon for an action movie to depend crucially on adversaries vying for scripture. But ardently the script by Gary Whitta makes a good case that the Bible could be the greatest book ever written due to its intellectual content and influential language. Audiences looking for plot holes will find “Book of Eli” a crock, but the kind of substance the movie has is very bold indeed. It also goes without saying the movie is very entertaining.