The Book of Eli

I took a few days off this weekend - whew! Thursday was the last day of testimony (for awhile) in an arbitration that our firm is litigating. I went to work Friday and discovered that everyone else on the team had taken the day off. That showed me that I really need to read those memos that cross my desk!

Anyway, our family went to see the movie “Book of Eli” over the weekend. For those of you who haven’t seen it, it is a gratuitously violent film, but also a very interesting one. It is set in a post apocalyptic largely anarchic world of violent marauders. Denzel Washington plays a warrior type figure who is in possession of the last known Bible. He is on a mission to deliver this bible to a place where it will be used to spread enlightenment and morality. Along the way, he passes through a town ruled by a warlord type who understands that the language of the Bible can be used as a weapon of mass control and manipulation. The warlord has been looking for a copy of the Bible to use for just this purpose and discovers that Denzel’s character is in possession of one. Hence the action.

There are other interesting twists, turns, and ironies that make the film worth seeing. It is not a particularly deep treatment of the paradoxical nature of the Scriptures - but it raises the issue in a vivid manner. On that account, I thought it was worthwhile.

At any rate, it was more enjoyable than sitting in my office reviewing construction documents.

Joe H.