The Hughes Brothers (“Menace II Society”) finally return after an almost nine-year absence with “The Book Of Eli,” starring Denzel Washington and Mila Kunis (and Tom Waits). What an odd pairing, huh? Their last feature-length film was 2001’s highly dubious, “From Hell,” starring Johnny Depp and adapted from an Alan Moore comic (essentially another retelling of the Jack The Ripper murders).
Coincidentally, a not entirely script review on Script Shadow was taken down today by Warner Bros. Perhaps they’re nervous because the trailer was released today?
Though it’s an apocalyptic film the movie is “stylistically more like a Western in tone, ” Albert Hughes told EW in an interview that’s not online (hence our scan here). Except that there are, “no cars, no horses, no animals at all… and no assless chaps.” OK, these guys really have a weird perception of what constitutes a Western. It sort of looks like the mainstream version of “The Road,” with more guns and general kick-assness, which is fortunate for TWC and Dimension films because their arty, Cormac McCarthy picture will come out in the fall and ‘Eli’ won’t hit theaters until 2010.It also looks generally idiotic and lowest common denominator which is why its release date is tellingly January 15, 2010, i.e. dumping ground season. At best they’re hoping it’s a “Taken,” like box-office surprise, but the expectations are surely not high critically. It’s a bit of a shame as these brothers had promise, but this looks genuinely run-of-the-mill with probably semi-interesting cinematography.
What happened to the Hughes Brothers? Why were they gone from the screen for so long? “We took a twin sabbatical,” Allen told the L.A. Times in a recent interview. Wait, is that code for they had a sibling falling out? Not exactly, but it sounds like there was some tension there. Apparently there were issues over girlfriends, but no single event triggered their time off from one another. “It got blown out of proportion,” he said, annoyed. “Someone told me that [my brother and I] got in a fistfight. I heard all these crazy rumors, and it just got worse and worse and worse.” BTW, they’ll surely have a career, but this might be the end of the Hughes Brothers for us, i.e., they look like they’re falling into the same action schlock territory that befell John Singleton, another director we no longer care for.