Fact is, you feel compelled to watch it, even if you don’t get that two for one discount. You feel the need to give it a go, purely because of the brand. It holds weight, it has a certain ‘je nai se quoi’, a ‘va va voom’ that says that the Denzel will appeal to the masses and give you more firepower in Washington’s favour in the age old argument of the best male actor of this generation.
Sadly Book of Eli won’t give you any ammunition if you’re rooting for Denzel, as there is a feeling that this just isn’t his best work. It does intrigue at times but there also lies a strong sense of anticlimax, you’re left wanting more, and as the credits role you feel somewhat let down and detached from the film.
Opening strongly with a grey derelict landscape that’s seems ridden of life, we cast our eyes over a skeletal cat that wonders the earth looking for its next meal. In an almost espionage like style we see the cat come to an untimely death by an arrow struck from a man who lay lurking in the depths donning a power plant jump suit.
Nonetheless that man is Eli (Denzel), trawling the earth with general attire you’d expect to see in a Nirvana video, long jacket, army still boots, sporting an old generation ipod and ironically beats by dre headphones, and no, that wasn’t a typing error.
With no real dialogue in the first ten minutes we pay close attention to characteristics behind Denzel, the hunter, the killer the man on a mission west. But the opening scenes don’t strike you as the beginning of the film, you’re left asking questions like what’s going on, and better yet “why am I even here”.
Then suddenly, the plot picks up and we begin to understand that Denzel has a possession that is wanted one man who wishes to control the world that has been left in ruins from a war.
