The Book of Eli: Grade C

C
The Book of Eli (2010)
Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis; Directors Allen Hughes & Albert Hughes.

Stellar acting by Denzel pulls this movie up to average. Without his performance, it would be seriously sub-par. He is a solitary traveler (Eli) in a post-apocalyptic America, a sun-burnt wasteland that looks like the aftermath of nuclear war (few buildings left). He walks from town to town for no special purpose, reading his Bible when he can. Highway robbers of all sorts try to attack him for reasons unknown (they are presumably just mean) but fortunately he has deadly martial arts skills, a big knife and a short-handled shotgun, so he is in no real danger. And he apparently skipped right over that part in the Bible about not killing.

Eventually an evil gangleader (Oldman) discovers that Eli has a Bible and will do anything to get it. Why? So he can rule the world with its ideas. Hmmm. There isn’t much to rule, really, nor even much for his gang to do, but never mind. So it is cat and mouse focused around the Bible for a while. Meanwhile, a young woman (Kunis) who used to belong to the gangleader, runs away to travel with Eli, perhaps because he keeps saving her from the danger she chronically falls into.

It’s all silly nonsense. Water is a rare commodity in the future world but petrol is still plentiful, so the bad guys can race around in giant SUVs and motorcycles, all of them in remarkably good shape, implying not only a petroleum refining and distribution industry but also a thriving machine parts industry somewhere. Eli has to shoot pigeons with a bow and arrow for food, even though everyone in the picture is quite well fed. Oldman’s gang collects books for him but he just burns them because all he wants is a Bible. This overlooks the fact that the Bible is, and always has been, the most frequently printed book in history, so statistically, you would expect to find more Bibles than any other book. Oh well.

There is a Mad Max allusion with all the choppers screaming around a dusty green environment (why the atmosphere in the future is green is unexplained). And there is a significant allusion to the Sergio Leone spaghettis in the beginning.

Besides Denzels’ strong performance, the cinematography is attractive. Many of the shots are stereotypes, but quite a few are beautiful and creative. That’s worth seeing. Overall however, the acting is clunky, directing undistinguished, story laughable, dialog obvious and stilted.

Blindness: Grade C

C
Blindness (2008)
Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Gael Garcia Bernal. Director Fernando Meirelles.

Inexplicably, people in a major modern city go instantly blind, one by one, until the whole city is blind. That’s the premise we must accept. Ruffalo is an ophthalmologist who examines a patient with the mysterious ailment, then “goes” himself. His wife, Moore, accompanies him to the quarantine, even though she remains sighted. Soon the quarantine is overcrowded, chaotic, filthy and surrounded by guard towers, so we have morphed from an allegory of social fear of biological pathogens, like an escaped virus or maybe HIV, to some sort of Holocaust metaphor.

Moore conceals her visual ability, for reasons unknown, and helps individuals and groups get somewhat organized. But the “bad” group gets hold of a gun, seizes the limited food supply and demands payment from the others for food. The dramatic situation could have been resolved in five minutes, since a gun is not that useful for a blind person, while sighted Moore could easily have overcome the lot of them. But instead the movie morphs into a Lord of the Flies theme to show the dark side of human nature. Finally someone thinks to check the front door, which is open and all the guards are gone and the city is empty of life except other starving and dying blind people. And so on. There is no resolution, no message, no point to the whole thing.

The strengths of the film include terrific (though terrifically bleak) cinematography, compelling acting from Moore, and some moments of insight. On the down side, the screenplay lacks any semblance of story arc or character development. Some scenes are thought-provoking, such as the realization that it makes no sense to segregate the genders for dressing and bathing, since everybody is blind. But in general, the movie is an insult to blind people, and over all nothing adds up. We could accept throwing reason to the wind for the sake of observing human behavior in a contrived crucible, but Lord of the Flies has already been done, so why do it again, badly?

Southland Tales: Grade F

F
Southland Tales (2006)
Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson, Sean William Scott, Bai Ling, Janine Garofalo, Justin Timberlake, many others. Writer-Director Richard Kelly.

Terrorists detonate a nuclear bomb in Texas and the US tries to respond appropriately. This is a futuristic apocalypse showing a dystopian society. The actual destruction and effects of a nuclear explosion are not considered, but instead there is focus on generating a police/military response (to what?). Interesting, wacko characters try to work the social system for personal gain. Johnson seems to be some sort of ex-military guy who has important information about something, but has amnesia. Nothing makes any sense, and I could not discern any plot or narrative thread. So taken as just a collection of individual scenes that you might want to look at, some of them are visually interesting, several are satirical, and many are funny, especially in the first half hour or so. But since the movie is total chaos, confusion is quickly followed by boredom. I came away with nothing.