Search SFE    Search EoF

  Omit cross-reference entries  

Book of Eli, The

Entry updated 3 January 2017. Tagged: Film.

Film (2010). Alcon Entertainment presents a Silver Pictures production. Directed by Albert and Allen Hughes. Written by Gary Whitta. Cast includes Jennifer Beals, Mila Kunis, Gary Oldman, Ray Stevenson and Denzel Washington. 117 minutes. Colour.

Stylishly shot, hammily played Post-Holocaust western centred on an enigmatic loner (Washington) carrying the last King James Bible on a coast-to-coast mission obstructed by a local warlord (Oldman), who wants the Bible for himself as an instrument of power and control. A film with a thunderous twist one either sees coming or doesn't, it unusually advocates an openly Religious interpretation of events, with secular explanations of Washington's miraculous invulnerability knocked away as the film unfolds, and the film was championed in the US by Christian advocates of faith-based cinema – though the film is no less provocative about the potential of religious authority as a tool of cynical abuse. Whitta was a former Videogames journalist and magazine editor in the UK who diverged successfully into comics and screenwriting; this unorthodox spec script from 2006 was his Hollywood breakthrough. [NL]

See also: Perception.

links

previous versions of this entry



x
This website uses cookies.  More information here. Accept Cookies