Every feature article written for a movie is, in a way, an advertisement of sorts. It's there to raise awareness and interest, to pique without plot-spoilers, to intrigue with insight. And what are the groundrules? Well, I guess you can look to the official advertisements and trailers for that.

So from that standpoint, it's no spoiler to relay to you exactly what co-director Alan Hughes had to say about the "mysterious" book jealously guarded by Denzel Washington in this weekend's The Book of Eli. "It's the Bible, man," he said emphatically during roundtable interviews with the Christian press corps last weekend. What else could it be, indeed? Hughes left the room chuckling at journalistic speculation about how different the story might have been had the precious object been, say, the Hope Diamond.

Still, Hughes does not at all feel like he has made a closed-ended film that can be interpreted only one way. "It's a blessing for Christians because it's the Bible in this movie," he concedes; but like all audiences, he firmly believes, "they're seeing what they want to see."

The same, I imagine, holds true for star Denzel Washington. The ending of the film is vague enough in its imagery to allow several possibilities for the fate of Eli's young protègè Solara. When she hits the road once more for the long journey home, is it for revenge—or something more prosaic? Washington thinks he knows.

"In the grand scheme of things," he asserts, Eli "passes the baton. ... [Solara] passes through those gates and carries the Word forward." Despite the bleak setting of the film, he ultimately finds the story "hopeful."

Even Gary Oldman, who plays the film's villain, finds Eli's blind faith admirable. "Faith is such an incredible thing—you can't see it, you can't touch it," he glowed while sitting next to co-star Mila Kunis. "It's an admirable thing, an enviable thing."

It's easy for these two actors to read The Book of Eli that way—they were, after all, sitting in a friendly room with like-minded members of the press; and Oldman wears his faith around his neck for all to see, while Washington wears his on his sleeve.

Denzel Washington was not only raised the son of a Pentecostal pastor, he also experienced the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (which he says was actually too strong an experience for him, real though it was) and was once the object of a prophetic word from Ruth Green, a customer at his mother's beauty parlor. "You are going to travel the world and speak to millions of people," she told the expelled student on March 27, 1975. Since then, Washington has come to think of himself as something of a mass-media preacher.

So he acknowledges that Eli is not exactly the epitome of Christian behavior. He actually dispatches more souls, and in an often gruesome fashion, than Carnegie, Oldman's villain; and when faced with a choice of paths he clearly chooses the wide road that leads to destruction. In one key confrontation between Eli and Carnegie, in fact, Washington can ask, "Who's the better man in that moment?"

But he firmly believes the film's script has Eli learn an important lesson: that we sometimes get "so busy protecting" our faith that we forget to practice it. "If you don't love your fellow man," Washington insists, "you don't have anything."

Will mainstream audiences find Solara's weapon-laden denouement quite so hopeful? I guess that depends on what book you're carrying with you—and how much devil you find in the details.