The Book of Eli

by **Storm** January 17th 2010, 4:33 am

Here is my review on this movie, which I think turned out to be very very good.

In a post-war world, Eli (played by Denzel Washington) is a drifter who has in his possession the last known Bible in existence. Some years before, the last war broke out, causing all evidence of God to be destroyed, so people would lose their faith and go wild. He was led to the Bible by a voice in his head and found it under some rubble and has kept watch over it for 30 years, constantly reading it and memorizing the lines of it every day.

Soon, he reaches a town in the middle of nowhere, which is under the control of Carnegie (Gary Oldman) who rules the town with fear and has a huge supply of water at his disposal, which is hard to come by in that movie. Eli then chats with Carnegie for a bit and Carnegie thinks that Eli would be a huge help to him if he stayed with him to help rule the town, but Eli declines the offer and decides to leave and continue his quest heading west to where the voice in his head said the Bible would be safe and protected. Carnegie realizes that he holds the Bible and wants to rule the town with an iron fist if he had in his possession and become a God himself. Soon after, Eli talks with Solaris, who is under Carnegie's watchful eye and is the daughter of her mother, who is blind but his a caring heart. Eventually, he starts to leave town, but is stopped by Carnegie and his men outside in the street and Carnegie wants the Bible that he has in his backpack and tells him "that's isn't meant for you to control the weak" so to speak.

Eli fights his way out of town by killing most of his men, then shooting Carnegie in his leg as he is then carried back inside the bar and Eli decides to keep on walking outside of town and heads west. Solaris decides to come with him because her mother said that she would be better off with Eli than back with Carnegie and she eventually leads him to a spring that has clean water inside and tells Eli that there's only three springs that Carnegie knows of and knows the locations to them. Eli decides to leave Solaris locked inside the spring and continues his walk west, leaving her by herself. Eventually she meets a woman who's shopping cart has one of the wheels broken off and asks for her help, but the woman is actually the bait any passerby that come through the area and two guys attempt to rape Solaris, while the woman nearby is in shock, but Eli saves Solaris by killing the two men then the two of them continue walking west, leading them to a building as they rest for the night.

Carnegie decides to head out to where Eli might be at with his right-hand man and several others by armored vehicles to track him down, kill him, then take the book. His right-hand man proposes a deal to Carnegie saying that he "wants Solaris in return for the Bible". Eventually, they catch up with Eli and Solaris at a elderly couples house, but tells Solaris that they eat flesh, which is proof as to why their hands shake so much and bury the remainders of the bodies in the back. Eli, Solaris and the couple decide to get into a gunfight with Carnegie and his men, killing the elderly couple off first and going after Solaris and Eli by pulling out an old-fashioned Gatling gun and using in on the house. Eventually, the fight is over and Eli and Solaris are now caught and captured and Carnegie forces Eli to tell him where he hid the Bible, but Solaris tells him not to but he does so anyway. Once he holds the Bible, he shoots Eli in the stomach as he falls to the ground and lays there as Carnegie, Solaris, and the rest of his men drive off from the house which is now in shambles, leaving Eli there to die.

As they are headed back to the town, Solaris decides to fight back, strangling the driver and the right-hand man gets stabbed by Eli's sword as the car flips over a few times and he gets killed and lays on the side of the ground as Solaris drives back to the house to save Eli and help him keep on with his journey west by car until they reach the remains of San Francisco. From there they go to Alcatraz, which is under heavy guard as they both go inside and talk to a man who is curious about Eli Bible that he had in his possession.

Back in town, Carnegie gets a shopkeeper to unlock the Bible and when he opens it, he is unable to read it because it's in Braille and the woman who is Solaris's mother refuses to read the Bible to him and tells him that his gang is causing a mess downstairs in the bar and walks off, leaving him alone in his office.

Back at Alcatraz, Eli eventually goes blind and tells the man to write down everything that he says and print it off later on. Eli finally accomplishes his goal and dies soon after, while Solaris and the man go to his grave and she says that there is something that she must do and decides that she's can't stay at Alcatraz despite being welcomed to. She heads off on a journey on her own, walking on the road and soon vanishes....

I found that movie to be great from beginning to end and Denzel Washington, the woman who played Solaris and Gary Oldman all played fantastic roles in the movie, my favorite being Denzel Washington as Eli. The moral of the movie to me is to hold on to your faith even in times of trouble and if you called to do something in your life, do so without conviction or worry. I would recommend that movie to anyone.