The latest in a spate of bleak apocalyptic (and post-apocalyptic) films, “The Book of Eli” adds a new dimension. Eli (Denzel Washington) is a lone wanderer in a post-war-to-end-allwars America. But his meanderings have a goal: Go West. In his backpack, Eli carries a precious bible, the last one on Earth. How he knows that, well, just go with it or you won’t enjoy the movie. And you assuredly won’t enjoy the movie if you don’t like violence. Lots of righteous, blood-spurting, creative violence with sound effects. This is pure violence as pure entertainment. Perhaps it’s really a sarcastic violence more than anything. The villain, Carnegie, (Gary Oldman being his excellent, bad self) wants Eli’s bible for nefarious reasons. How could a bible be used for evil? Well, here’s where “Eli” gets interesting. Some say the Bible was used to start the Big War (This makes one think of those fundamentalist Christians who are eager to initiate Armageddon in the Middle East so Jesus will come back.). Carnegie wants to use it to control “the minds and hearts” of the survivors. Any which way, the Word is powerful. And can make people powerful for good or not so good. It is a “two-edged sword” in more ways than one. “The Book of Eli” seems to be saying that the Word of God can be the blueprint for a just, kind, ethical society or, perhaps, for a brain-washed, kept-down, homogeneous, controllable society. The Word of God (as the Lord once put himself in our hands as a helpless baby, and is now in our hands as even more vulnerable Bread) can be used any way we choose. For now. The fact that the Detroit-based Hughes brothers (one an atheist, one not) made this film makes the story all the more intriguing. Are we detecting the input of both? This is a kind of message film, but it’s clever. It makes you think. The rest of the movie? It will keep you hanging on to see what happens, but it’s terribly unrealistic, even for science fiction. However, Denzel Washington pulls it off as few others could. In one way, “Eli” is about books, the future of books, the preservation of books (and literacy for that matter). The “Bible-as-literature” is perhaps the best a pluralistic society can do, and we cannot deny the Bible as part of the fabric of the founding of America. But the Word of God is so much more. God demands our total selves, our total allegiance, like ancient Israel achieved at times in their history, and as our other siblings of Abraham, our Muslim brothers and sisters, remind us by their devotion.