The Book of Eli Movie Analysis

The Book of Eli directed by Albert and Allen Hughes is a film released in 2010. This story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world in which Eli (Denzel Washington) fights his way across the now wastelands and emptiness of the once great America, in order to protect a sacred book that holds secrets to saving mankind. This film is 30 years after a great war and the earth was scorched due to a nuclear fallout. Living on this earth was scarce, many people turned narcissistic and developed psychotic behavior. This is shown by the villain Carnegie played by (Gary Oldman) who is a sinful man that will stop at nothing to get what he wants. 

The mood in this film is set from the very beginning, with the opening scene being of a mysterious character in Hazmat clothing, hunting for food, in a darkened, dead forest with ashes falling from the sky. The animal that he is hunting is a starved hairless cat. Which also represents the kind of world our character is in, and can foreshadow the people that we come to meet later in the movie. Our character then goes on walking and finds a girl asking for help but it turned out to be a con. A group of men came out of the shadows all dressed in distressed and ripped clothes with homemade weapons and planned on killing Eli. The men are very disturbing looking and that's how they act because they try to kill anyone who comes through their area. Eli ends up destroying them. The director films this scene from a back view only showing the shadows of the men and Eli slicing through them. By adding the shadows it could be interpreted as showing the dark side of Eli as he is a person of light and is shown to guide and show hope for others throughout the film. A lot of scenes show Eli walking in a large landscape, this shows how deprived the earth and environment is and that humanity was really just wiped off the Earth.

Eli wanders into a small town with civilization and it shows people on the street looking through rocks and a young child crying because there is no way to take care of a baby in this world. Eli goes into a shopkeeper's store to try to fix a battery he has. The man pulls a gun on Eli because people in that town are afraid of other travelers and could see Eli as a threat. The shopkeeper is shown as a dirty scheming man who collects items from people that are considered valuable in the new world but used to basically mean nothing in the old world. For example Eli gives the man KFC hand wipes and a lighter, the shopkeeper asks for chapstick and Eli says he doesn't have any, but he has cat oil which is basically the same thing and that shows that Eli knows things about survival and how to use things for his benefit. Eli goes to the bar as he waits for his battery to get fixed and once again, everyone is staring at him and the director emphasizes this by only shining the light on Eli during the whole scene. Eli once again kills many people and is stopped by the leader of the town, and the villain of the movie known as Carnegie. Carnegie is shown in a very proper way, he has a clean shaved face, washed hair, glasses, and neat clothes. Carnegie is obsessed with power and everyone in town follows him because they are fearful of him. Carnegie is one of the few left on earth who are educated and know how to read and write. This leads to the plot of the movie in which Carnegie is searching for a book. Eli has been asked to stay the night in the town and meets a young woman named Solara, she is very good-looking and her mother is forced to be aside Carnegie at all times. Solara is used by Carnegie and she is forced to do anything he tells her to. Eli is caught reading the book that Carnegie is searching for and Solara is baffled by it. She doesn't know how to read the book, but she is very intrigued by it. Eli is very smart and can tell that Carnegie is a mischievous man so Eli leaves the town. Solara meets back with Carnegie and her mother after Eli has left town. And Solara starts speaking words from the Bible that Carnegie recognizes. Carnegie then starts freaking out and has a stranglehold on Solaras mom, he starts questioning Solara about where she has heard of this verse, she then goes to explain to him that Eli was reading a book with a metal cross on it. At that exact moment Carnegie gathered a group of men to go hunt for Eli in search of the book that he has been long waiting to find. Eli is leaving the town when Carnegie and his goons attack him, Eli leaves after killing more men and is later joined by Solara. Solara shows Eli the water well where they can get fresh water, Eli says thank you and then locks her in the water well door. Solara escapes and runs into the same girl running the con with bad men and the girl is telling Solara to leave but it is too late and the wandering men attack her but then Eli comes and shoots one with an arrow and kills the other. Eli saves Solara, and they start walking together, they spend the night in an abandoned area and Solara asks if Eli really reads the book every day and Eli responds with “without fail” and he goes on to talking about life before the war. The next day Eli and Solara see a house with a sign that says no trespassing but Eli and Solara go up to the house anyway. The owners of the house come out, and they are talking to them and acting all normal but Eli finds out that they are cannibals and are crazy people so Eli tries to leave but Carnegie and his goons find their location and try to kill them and get the book. The cannibals die and Eli and Solara eventually give up and Eli gives Carnegie the book, and then Carnegie takes Solara and tells his men to shoot Eli. Solara escapes the car she was taken in and Carnegie's main henchman is injured in her escape and instead of fighting back he accepts his death and this is shocking to Carnegie. Solara goes back to save Eli and they head west. Back at the town Carnegie is so excited to open the book and he opens it and realizes it is in braille and there are no words so only people who can read braille can actually read the bible, Carnegie asks Solaras mother who is blind, but she doesn't know how to read it. Eli and Solara end up going all the way to the west and Eli is able to recite the entire bible to a man and the man is writing down everything Eli is saying and the man will make copies for everyone, so they can learn the ways of the bible. The movie ends with Solara looking at Eli’s grave and telling him that she is going to continue what Eli started and go back to save her mother and try to make the world a better place.

As stated before, the characters in the film have developed narcissistic and psychotic behavior, due to the setting of the film being a post-apocalyptic world. They demonstrated the dark, gloomy mood and tone of the film with tremendous costume design, props, lighting, and appropriate actors for the characters. In our opinion, the Hughes brothers did an outstanding job from what was listed above. But every movie you watch, at the end you can call it three things, a bad movie, a good movie, or a great movie, so what is this movie? We have come to the conclusion based on excellent mise-en-scène that this is considered a great film.