Denzel Washington has become a pretty indelible presence in movie culture, but it's safe to say that The Book of Eli introduces fans to a new Denzel - trudging through a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max landscape, carrying the fate of mankind on his shoulders and lopping limbs off bad guys with a big old chef's knife.
In the course of doing so, Washington joins the sci-fi fantasy posse currently invading movie theatres galaxy-wide and promises to ignite a Washingtonian debate.
"Is Denzel chasing Will Smith's action-hero status and pretend street credibility?" critic Armond White asks. "Is this an I Am Legend contest?"
Maybe not, but one can see why Washington might want to chart a new course through the continually heaving landscape of the movie business. With few exceptions (The Great Debaters of 2007, for instance), his movies have always made money - but a very static kind of money.
Over the past decade, the thrillers in which Washington has specialised have been remarkably consistent earners - Training Day ($US77 million domestic [$NZ107 million]; $US105 million worldwide); John Q. ($US77 million; $US102 million), Man on Fire ($US78 million; $US130 million); The Manchurian Candidate ($US66 million; $US96 million); Inside Man ($US88 million; $US104 million); Deja Vu ($US64 million; $US180 million); and last year's The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 ($US66 million; $US150 million).
But Washington has been the victim of some nasty facts of life. The movies that have made major money - like American Gangster ($US130 million domestic; $US266 million worldwide) - have paired him with another (white) star, and it's made a big difference, even if his paler sidekick has been Russell Crowe (or, in Pelham, John Travolta).
The black American movie has traditionally not sold well overseas, and global sales are a major motivator in what studios are choosing to make. Add to this that Washington has not, for some time, made himself politically or artistically important - there's been no Philadelphia (1992), no Malcolm X (1993), not even The Siege (1998), with its prescient paranoia about radical Islam. So why not take a trip into the future?
Directed by brothers Allen and Albert Hughes (Menace II Society, From Hell), The Book of Eli is, in a sense, a Western.
The title character, the classic lone wolf, travels the scorched world of 2043 carrying a book in which the salvation of mankind is enclosed; the conflict arises when the book is seized by the mayor of a makeshift frontier town (Gary Oldman).
If it sounds a bit like something by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood, Allen Hughes will not disabuse you.
"It was an Eastwood-esque role," he agrees. "Shaolin monk meets Sitting Bull meets Moses meets Bruce Lee. And Denzel was the first choice in my mind. He was the guy."
Hughes, who hasn't directed a movie with his brother since the Jack the Ripper movie From Hell, said since that Johnny Depp vehicle opened in 2001, he and Albert have had five or six projects they were deeply interested in doing, but that, for one reason or another, did not get made.
"One we were very passionate about - and which got made because a movie star made it - was Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," he said, referring to George Clooney's directorial debut. "We had a strong vision for it, but at the time the politics of it weren't right. It was a movie we were perfect for, something that was original, but it just didn't happen."
Having Washington on board, he said, made a huge difference with The Book of Eli. Not all the difference, but a difference.
"Denzel was a major factor in getting it made, but even when we got him, there were more hurdles. He was very helpful because, obviously, he's a great actor, a two-time Academy Award winner, a movie star, but there were still politics, and he had to get involved as a producer, and if he hadn't, the movie wouldn't have gotten made because it's not something that's in Denzel's normal wheelhouse."
Given that scenario - a major star leaving his comfort zone - Hughes said the studios "will come up with six million excuses why they shouldn't do it". But the change of tempo, in both an artistic and professional sense, may prove to be a boon for Washington, a star of considerable luminosity that probably needs to be refocused.
