A 'Book' Worth Fighting For

The movie market in the last few years seems to have been inundated with post-apocalyptic themed movies. If you ask me, put Denzel Washington in a post-apocalyptic movie and I'll go see it, no question asked. That's the power of a kick-ass actor like Denzel, and the Hughes brothers must have realized that when they pegged him for the lead role in "The Book of Eli."

The plot is simple enough, another of my requirements for a solid post-apocalyptic film: Denzel plays Eli, a loner walking "the road" towards the west, carrying a book that he clearly highly values. Eli encounters various atrocities along his route, sometimes stopping to inflict some damage on the bad guys, other times he keeps on trekking.

Eventually Eli comes upon what amounts for a town in the mayhem of this imagined earth. He goes to an engineers office to get a battery charger revamped so he can listen to music on his iPod. While he's waiting, he heads over to the bar across the street to get some water, a scarce commodity on this dry earth. While there, Eli is acosted by a group of thugs whom he earlier witnessed commit a pretty horrible deed. Eli reacts in the way most people do in this ruthless world: opens a can of whoopass.

The fight is witnessed by Carnegie (Gary Oldman), the leader of the town and of the rogues that Eli has dispatched of. Carnegie is impressed, and wants Eli to stay and become a member of his gang, promising food, water and visits with members of the opposite sex. Carnegie, as it turns out, also enjoys books, and has a certain one that he is constantly looking for. That's a good basic intro; you'll have to see it to find out the rest.

I really liked this movie. The acting is good, the fight scenes great and the directing and composition of the film is interesting and unique. There are some good twists as well, and it is an uptempo movie that never really drags. I think movies about post-apocalypto are pretty awesome, as is Denzel, so that itself was worth the price of admission to me. It's not the best movie I've seen, but it keeps you interested and curious about how it will end.

7 out of 10 stars

Here's the trailer: