The Ron’s review published on Letterboxd:
I've slept on this film since it came out in 2010. It received mostly middle of the road to bad reviews from critics so I just never watched it. After joining Letterboxd over a year ago now, I read some reviews that encouraged me to give it a chance.
Right from the beginning I was into it. First the visual style and look of the post apocalyptic world grabbed my attention. Then Denzel comes along all bad ass and shit further peaking my interest. Eli (Denzel Washington) is what people call a "walker". He's traveling the bleak post apocalyptic world heading west for reasons only known to him. Upon stopping in a town, and being forced to use his bad ass fighting skills he meets a man named Carnegie (Gary Oldman). Carnegie runs the town, and is impressed with Eli's particular set of skills. He ask Eli to stay because he feels he can use a man of his talents. At this point we know that Carnegie sends out road crews searching for a book he feels will give him power and control over people. Carnegie sends Solara (Mila Kunis) to further persuade Eli to stay. It's not long before we learn Eli is in possession of this mysterious book and will do anything to protect it.
What we end up with is a post apocalyptic chase film with visuals that made me think of everything from Mad Max to the video game Fallout 3. Obvious religious undertones come into play so your feeling on that subject may make or break the film for you. For me the visual style was cool and the story was interesting. I liked the characters and their motivations. The film has some issues, but overall I enjoyed it and feel it's a bit underrated.