The (Un)Christian Road Warrior: The Crisis of Religious Representation in The Book of Eli (2010)

In a recent review of The Book of Eli (JRF 14:1), Adam Porter has claimed that the movie is an “affirm[ation] of God and an exploration of “the way religion can be used, both positively and negatively”. In our article, we will argue instead that the role of religion in the movie is much more ambiguous than this and that the movie not only fails to resolve the differences between putative ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ uses of religion, but, indeed, is also based on a highly problematic understanding of the role of religion and particularly religious texts within society