"El Camino" Review

Cover Art of “El Camino”, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Television

(I did my best not to, but this article may contain spoilers, both for “Breaking Bad” and “El Camino”)

You wouldn’t be alone if you had no idea that “Breaking Bad” showrunner Vince Gilligan was coming out with a follow-up movie to the popular series, called “El Camino”. For those who may not know, “Breaking Bad” followed a former high school science teacher, Walter White, who turns to make meth after he finds out he has cancer. According to Forbes, they kept production so secret that Gilligan looked at all of the production sites in a helicopter, Aaron Paul had a cover story for shooting in New Mexico, and they had codenames for all the different characters while shooting as well as a false name for the film: Greenbrier.

Due to all this secrecy, it was quite a shock to me and many others when the first teaser was released for the film. All that teaser provided was a simple basis for the film, which was going to follow Jesse (Aaron Paul), the infamous Walter White’s partner in his meth empire, shortly after the end of “Breaking Bad”. The Official Trailer, showed quite a bit more about what the tone and feel of the movie would be like, hinting at a sort of modern western while Jesse is trying to avoid the police.

So is the movie a modern western? For sure parts of the movie are along these lines, but I wouldn’t say the entire movie is like that. The showdown hinted at at the end of the official trailer definitely would fit right in with the standoffs you’d see in just about any western. The vast desert shots that are quite beautiful, yet lonely, also look like there should be some cowboys rustling some cattle. But beyond that, I wouldn’t say this is a straight western at all.

“Breaking Bad” fans may have been hoping for a redemption story for Jesse as well after all of the hardships he had to endure throughout the show. Sorry, not a redemption arc. Jesse himself suggests this in an early flashback to when he had a conversation with Mike (Jonathan Banks), the straightforward and tough security man from the series. Jesse says how he is done with the meth business and wants to move away when Jesse says he wants to “put things right.” Mike looks over at him and tells him, “No. Sorry kid, that’s the one thing you can never do.”

This tells the viewer a lot at the beginning of the film what this is going to be like. Jesse is for sure someone to root for, but there is no way for him to put the past behind him. He’s just a man trying to finally get away from the life that has caused him so much pain. This is what makes this movie so special. It’s a tension-filled, emotional story about someone who is coming to grips with what he has done, while also trying to run away from it.

The film has many flashbacks throughout, which was somewhat surprising given we already knew so much about Jesse coming into the film (given you have seen “Breaking Bad”). However, these flashbacks are essential to understand where Jesse is as a character. 

As a reminder, Jesse at the end of “Breaking Bad” was finally released from his cage that he was kept in for a long time while he was forced to cook for a Neo-Nazi gang. Much of the film consists of flashbacks during a day where Jesse gets to go out into the real world during his captivity. These flashbacks specifically tell the viewer, eventually, that Jesse at this point has been stripped of everything, and has lost all hope of being anything other than a prisoner.

You may be thinking about how horrible Jesse has had it for a while now, and you’d be right. This gives me the perfect opportunity to say how unbelievable Aaron Paul was in playing Jesse. Paul does a perfect job showing how desperate Jesse is to finally get away from his current life, but is able to show how rigid Jesse’s morals are, and he still isn’t looking to cross any lines in order to do so. Paul’s strongest scene, in my opinion, is when Jesse goes to Ed (the late Robert Forster), who is the kind of man that can allow you to start over with a brand new identity. You get everything from desperation to a sense of false confidence to coming to grips with facts. Paul is able to pull all the different strings of Jesse in this scene.

However great Paul is, this is Gilligan’s movie through and through, and a good portion of the greatness of the film comes down to him. The story is incredibly well constructed. All of the flashbacks are put in the right places where it either allows the viewer to feel as though they are figuring out Jesse’s backstory themselves, or it helps us understand why Jesse is doing what he is doing at a specific time. 

There is also an incredibly tense scene between Jesse and two police officers where the shifts in dynamic between the three are shown with a good balance of ambiguity and clarity that the viewer knows exactly what the intentions of the three characters are without having to say anything explicit. All thanks to Gilligan in my opinion.

Now, at the end of the movie, I wanted to write down some scenes that I thought were exceptionally good that I could reference in this review. And thanks to the beauty of Netflix, I was able to rewind through the whole movie and sort of relive them in my mind. I ended up writing 8 different scenes down, which is a lot considering that I limited my focus to scenes that had to be very good to write down since it was one of those movies that you could just feel was really well done.

This should tell you a lot about my opinion of the movie, but if you’re not convinced, I’ll tell you anyway. For some reason, this movie felt like it was a really small scale. This was weird considering it was taken from perhaps one of the biggest TV shows of the 21st century so far, and how well done the film was as well. I think this should speak volumes to how much Gilligan focused on Jesse as a character, and stayed true to his intentions throughout the entire movie. There are some brilliant moments in directing and cinematography (done by Marshall Adams), Aaron Paul gives perhaps his best performance. And the story is rich in depth of character, flashbacks that add to a story for once, as well as allowing for brilliant moments of tension that keeps the viewer engaged and glued to their screen.

And beyond that, the ending was absolutely phenomenal. It has a great philosophical line that gets you thinking, and you feel satisfied in terms of your investment in Jesse. If you were nervous about a money happy corporation ruining one of your favorite shows, don’t be. “El Camino” just adds to the legend of “Breaking Bad”.

My Rating: 4 Stars (I rate on a 4-star scale, both in honor of Roger Ebert, but I also don’t personally believe in “perfection”)