The Book of Eli

The Book of Eli
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Albert Hughes Allen Hughes
Written by	Gary Whitta
Produced by	Joel Silver Susan Downey Andrew Kosove Broderick Johnson Denzel Washington
Starring	Denzel Washington Gary Oldman Mila Kunis Ray Stevenson Jennifer Beals Frances de la Tour Michael Gambon
Cinematography	Don Burgess
Edited by	Cindy Mollo
Music by	Atticus Ross
Production companies	Alcon Entertainment Silver Pictures
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures Columbia Pictures
Release date	January 15, 2010 (2010-01-15)
Running time	118 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$80 million

The Book of Eli is a 2010 American film directed by the Hughes brothers, written by Gary Whitta, and starring Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman and Mila Kunis. The film was released on January 15, 2010.

Premise

In post-apocalyptic 2043, Eli (Denzel Washington) guards a sacred book that holds the secrets to saving humankind. The despot of a small makeshift town (Gary Oldman) plans to take possession of the book and use it to further his cause.

Plot

Set after an apocalyptic event, the film opens in an irradiated wood. A corpse lies rotting on the ground and a malnourished cat climbs over it and begins nibbling at its feet. An arrow is shot into the cat, killing it instantly. Eli (Denzel Washington) walks over to the cat, plucks out the arrow and bags it for dinner.

Eli walks through the abandoned road and finds an abandoned house and searches it for anything that can be useful. Eventually he finds the inhabitant of the house had hung himself in the closet long ago. He raids the corpse for its boots and stays in the house for the night. During the night Eli washes himself with some sanitary wet naps from KFC and cooks the cat he killed earlier, feeding a small mouse that comes in search of food.

The next morning, Eli continues his journey West and encounters a woman with a broken shopping cart. She asks him for help, but Eli calls out to the marauders hiding nearby since he can smell them. He fights off the marauders killing them all, takes their valuables and continues on his journey West.

As he continues on his journey, he ends up at the end of a destroyed high way ramp. Below, a couple is attacked by a group of bikers. The bikers kill the man, rape the woman and steal all of their books. They drive off, leaving Eli shaken but resolute in his determination not to get involved. He then walks into a nearby town. He finds the Engineer (Tom Waits) and trades goods for a recharge on his battery. While he waits, he asks if there is a place where he can fill his canteen and is directed to a bar across the street. The bikers who killed the couple arrive at the bar and deliver the books and items they stole from the couple to Carnegie (Gary Oldman), the mayor of the makeshift town. Carnegie is looking for a book, so sends his illiterate henchmen to collect all the books they can. He orders that they be burned. He takes a bottle of shampoo and tells Redridge (Ray Stevenson), his right hand man, that the bikers are to be rewarded for such a discovery. He goes to his wife, Claudia (Jennifer Beals), and shares the shampoo with her.

Downstairs, Eli trades his gloves and a keffeyah for a full canteen of water. The bartender gives the canteen to Solara (Mila Kunis) and sends her out back to get some water. The lead Biker approaches Eli but Eli subdues him easily and decides to leave. He fights and kills all in the bar but one biker, who Solara begs be spared. Carnegie’s men hold Eli at gunpoint and bring him to Carnegie. He asks Eli to stay so that Carnegie can utilize his fighting skills to keep control over the town. Eli tells Carnegie that he has no interest in staying but Carnegie forces him to stay the night.

Redridge sends Claudia to deliver Eli food. He recognizes that Claudia is blind and asks her if she was born blind or blinded by “The Flash”, presumably a nuclear blast. She confirms that she was blind her whole life, which - given the circumstances - she sees as a blessing rather than a handicap. Carnegie decides that the best way to keep Eli in town is to have Solara, Claudia’s daughter, sleep with Eli, he refuses. Solara begs him to keep her in the room. Eli accepts and teaches her to pray.

The next morning at breakfast, Solara tries to recite the prayer with her mother but forgets the “Amen”, which Carnegie supplies. He beats Claudia in front of Solara in order to find out if Eli has the book he seeks. When Solara signs him the cross on the cover, Carnegie orders Redridge to bring the book to him. When they get to the room, they see that Eli snuck out. Redridge kills the guard on duty and gathers the men to find him. Across the street, Eli gathers his battery and prepares to leave.

Carnegie goes over to Eli and begs him to stay and give him the Bible. He tells Eli that he isn’t afraid to kill Eli and take the Bible, since he thinks that it is the best way to keep the town under his control with “the words which can keep people righteous.” Eli tells Carnegie that he dreams of finding a town where the people need the book, but he tells Carnegie that it is not here. Carnegie orders Redridge to shoot Eli as he walks away but Redridge misses twice. A shootout ensues and Eli kills most of Carnegie’s men and wound’s Carnegie’s knee. Redridge sees Eli as fearless and begrudgingly lets him leave. Behind the scenes, Claudia tells Solara to follow Eli, since she will be safer away from Carnegie.

Carnegie gets his leg treated by a “doctor.” The bullet and shrapnel are removed and he is bandaged up. He tells Redridge to prepare the vehicles to pursue Eli and recover the book. Redridge tells Carnegie that most of their men are dead and decides to use the book as leverage to get Solara as his concubine. Carnegie humorously, albeit reluctantly, agrees. Eli travels down the road until Solara catches up to him. She wants to join him but she is rejected from the start. She offers to take him to the water supply Carnegie uses in exchange for the right to serve as his companion. He tricks her and locks her in the watering hole. She screams and calls him a liar but Eli insists that he isn’t, wishing her well and leaving on his way. Solara breaks out of the storage room and continues to go in the direction Eli was going.

She doesn’t find him, but instead finds the woman who worked with the marauders from early with her broken cart. She tries to help the woman, but the woman insists that she leave to keep from getting raped and killed. Two marauders attack Solara and just as they are about to rape her, Eli shoots one through the testicles with an arrow and then shoots the other through the throat. Solara hugs Eli and the two go off on their way. Carnegie and Redridge’s men find the bodies of the marauders. They reckon that Eli can't be more than a few miles ahead. Redridge finds a piece of Solara's custom clothing and tells Carnegie with displeasure. Carnegie asks if Redridge still wants her and walks back to the car. One of their henchmen suggests that they call it a day, since their cars will give them away at night and they could drive right by the pair.

Eli and Solara sleep in an old nuclear power plant. Eli reads the book and Solara asks Eli to read it to him. He recites a bit of it and then puts the book away. She asks him to teach her how to read it but Eli doesn't respond. When she thinks he's asleep she goes to take a look at the book in his bag. She sees (but can't read) an old K Mart tag which says “Hi, my name is Eli.” Eli grabs the bag away from her and makes her go back across the room, cocking his shotgun to make her know how serious he is.

The next day the pair set off and walk West. Solara asks him why he keeps the book and Eli explains that it is the only bible left in the world since it was singled out for extermination during the War. He then explains why he keeps heading west, which perplexes Solara but she eventually comes to accept that Eli is acting on his “faith.” He explains how he found the Bible, insisting that a Voice told him where to go and that he would be protected.

The pair arrives at an old house with a sign that says “Absolutely No Trespassing”. Eli tries to open the door, but a trap opens up and the two fall into a hole. They find themselves at the mercy of Martha (Frances de la Tour) and George (Michael Gambon), an elderly couple who have lived in their house for years. They ask why they didn't obey the sign and Eli apologizes, saying he didn't see it. They give Eli and Solara tea and then show them a cemetery filled with the people who attacked their house. Eli tells Solara that it's time to go, insisting that the couple are cannibals who ate their victims and could have drugged the tea. As they leave, Carnegie’s caravan passes and sees the pair exiting the house. Eli and Solara re-enter the house and George and Martha pull out their gun cache from under the sofa. A stand off ensues. Carnegie tells Eli to throw out the book. A covered book is hurled through the window. Redridge looks at it and realizes it's a bomb, throwing it away and running for cover. One car explodes, killing several men. Eli and company fire their weapons until Redridge pulls out an RPG missile and blows half the house up, killing Martha. George starts attacking Carnegie's men until he is shot with a Gatling gun. Eli and Solara are captured and taken out of the house.

Carnegie threatens to kill Solara, to the dismay of Redridge. Redridge entreats Eli to surrender the book and Eli tells Redridge where he hid it. Redridge recovers the book and gives it to Carnegie, who releases Solara. He says “God is good.” and Eli responds “all the time.” Carnegie responds “Well. Not all the time” and shoots Eli in the stomach. He puts Solara in the remaining car with Redridge and a driver and then takes the book with him in one of the vans. In the car, Redridge puts Eli's machete on the dashboard and chuckles to himself now that Eli is gone. Solara takes out the bow string from Eli's bow and chokes the driver until the car flips over. The driver is killed and Carnegie's men turn around to go to the crash. Solara throws a grenade, blowing up the van that Carnegie isn't in. Solara goes to the driver's seat and Redridge, despite having been impaled by the machete, grabs her hand. He pulls the Machete out and steps out of the vehicle, collapsing to his knees and removing his glasses, where he dies staring into the sun. Solara drives away and Carnegie opts not to go after her since he has the book and is low on fuel.

She returns to the house and finds that Eli is missing. She finds him walking West, feverishly repeating his need to go West. She puts him in the car and he treats the gun shot wound with duct tape. She apologizes for losing Eli's book but Eli responds that it's time he put the lessons he learned to use: “to do more for others than you do for yourself.” They drive to the remnants of the Golden Gate Bridge and Eli says that they are close. He gets a row boat and starts to row toward Alcatraz Island. As he weakens, Solara takes over rowing. An armed guard calls out to the pair and Eli responds that he has in his possession a King James Bible. The guard lets him in.

Eli is taken to Lombardi (Malcolm McDowell), the curator of Alcatraz, who has been gathering all sorts of old items, such as books, vases, paintings, and storing them in the cells until they are ready to rebuild and re-establish society. Lombardi tells Eli that they have been missing a copy of the Bible, so Eli tells him to get a lot of paper and pen. He starts to recite the Bible word for word, having memorized it over the last 30 years.

As Carnegie returns to the town he enlists the shop owner to unpick the lock on Eli’s bible. Once open he discovers that the pages are covered not with print, but Braille. He exclaims in despair at the impossibilities of what Eli has done

A focus on Eli’s eyes reveals that they have been dead since The Flash and that he has been traveling, fighting while blind or at least partially blind, relying on the use of his other senses and the protection that God had promised him. Carnegie tries to get Claudia to read it but she, realizing his intentions, lies and tells him that she has forgotten how to read. She tells him that his leg stinks and that he’s feverish: signs of an infection, probably gangrene. Meanwhile, Carnegie’s few remaining men are killed and it becomes clear that in his quest for the book, Carnegie has lost control. He collapses in despair and presumably dies of his infection eventually.

On Alcatraz Island, Eli shaves all his hair and changes into a white robe. He recites the Bible to completion while Lombardi writes it down word for word. Eli dies from his gunshot wound but completes his task.

After printing a copy of the Bible on a printing press, Lombardi places a copy in his library and places it on a shelf with other religions.

Upon completion he utters one last prayer for Solara and the world before he dies. He is buried in Alcatraz’s court yard garden. Solara pays her respects, takes his machete and iPod and leaves Lombardi to return home and find her mother.

Production

In May 2007, Columbia Pictures and Warner Brothers. signed the Hughes Brothers to direct The Book of Eli, based on a script by a Gary Whitta. The film is the brothers' first since From Hell in 2001. The script was subsequently rewritten by Anthony Peckham, and in September 2008, actor Denzel Washington was cast in the lead role. The following October, Gary Oldman was cast to star alongside Washington. Filming began in February of 2009, in New Mexico. Alcon Entertainment financed the film and co-produced with Silver Pictures.

Cast

• Denzel Washington as Eli
• Gary Oldman as Carnegie, a corrupted mayor who wants to take possession of the book
• Mila Kunis as Solara
• Ray Stevenson as Redridge, Carnegie's chief enforcer
• Jennifer Beals as Claudia, the blind mother of Solara and the concubine of Carnegie
• Michael Gambon as George, a man who holds onto old traditions with his wife Martha
• Evan Jones as the leader of a quartet of bikers
• Malcolm McDowell as Lombardi
• Frances de la Tour as Martha
• Tom Waits as The Engineer
• Lora Cunningham as Young Woman Hijacker

Release

Warner Bros. will distribute The Book of Eli in the United States and Canada, while Columbia Pictures distributes the film internationally.

Reception

As of January 15, the film currently holds a "rotten" 45% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 122 reviews. Roger Ebert said of the film: "You won't be sorry you went. It grips your attention, and then at the end throws in several WTF! moments, which are a bonus." Todd McCarthy of Variety predicted "this will not be one of ... Denzel Washington's bigger grossers". Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a D, calling it "a ponderous dystopian bummer that might be described as The Road Warrior without car chases, or The Road without humanity".

Box Office

The film opened to 3,111 theaters and grossed nearly $12 million ranked at #1 at the box office on its opening day.

Marketing

The first trailer was shown at San Diego Comic Con 2009 and on the internet on July 23, 2009, and premiered during the theatrical release of the 2009 film Orphan.

External links

• Official website
• The Book of Eli at IMDb
• The Book of Eli at AllMovie
• The Book of Eli at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Book of Eli at Box Office Mojo
• The Book of Eli at Metacritic
• The Book of Eli Review