Film Review — El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
EL Camino is Slight and Completely Unnecessary, And I Loved Every Minute of It
Breaking Bad series creator Vince Gilligan returns to helm a one-shot epilogue centered around Jesse Pinkman in El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. Taking place right after the events of the acclaimed AMC drama, El Camino is neither essential nor groundbreaking, but it is an absolute pleasure to behold. Like slipping on a pair of worn and comfortable shoes, Gilligan and Aaron Paul make a thrilling and confident return to the world they left behind six years ago. Minor spoilers ahead…
“Felina,” the final episode of Breaking Bad, aired on September 29, 2013. At the time, the episode seemed to be a period punctuating the end of one of the greatest television shows of all time: Walter White (Bryan Cranston), making a final stand against the Neo-Nazis, gets his revenge and frees a beleaguered Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) from captivity, only to bleed out as the law closed in around him. While “Felina” is a fine entry in the pantheon of prestige TV series finales, it wrapped up a string of episodes in which Jesse took a backseat to Walter White’s swan song. Over six years later, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie looks to give the series’ ostensible second lead some closure and a more involved send-off. Series creator Vince Gilligan’s welcome return as director results in a slight but memorable postmortem for the Breaking Bad story; this 122-minute powder keg might not be an essential component of the Walter White mythos, but it is an undeniable pleasure to revisit this world again. And while Jesse Pinkman was originally slated to die early on in the show’s original run, El Camino proves more than ever that the decision to keep him alive - and Aaron Paul employed - was a wise one.
Picking up exactly where the series finale of Breaking Bad left off, the film begins with Jesse peeling away from the Neo-Nazi compound in Todd Alquist’s (Jesse Plemons) El Camino, tears streaming down his face. Free from his sadistic captors but still wanted by the police as Heisenberg’s accomplice, Jesse has a simple goal: gather enough funds to buy his relocation to Canada from Ed Galbraith the vacuum-slinging “disappearer” (the late and great Robert Forster, in his final role). The narrative of El Camino isn’t one to turn many heads; instead, it focuses on what Vince Gilligan and Breaking Bad do best: conveying the rigmaroles of crime and writing characters into impossible situations. Splitting the difference relationship-driven charms of Better Call Saul and the crime drama of its parent series, Gilligan crafts El Camino as a crowd-pleasing western. There’s plenty of fan service tucked into every corner of the film - from the return of fan favorites like Badger (Matthew Lee Jones) and Skinny Pete (Charles Baker) to some other surprising cameos, there’s a lot of fun callbacks for hardcore fans to chew on, but it never lays it on too thick.
“This 122-minute potboiler might not be an essential component of the Walter White mythos, but it is an undeniable pleasure to revisit this world again.”
Much of El Camino is peppered with flashbacks that primarily color in Jesse’s relationship with the psychopathic Todd, slowly unraveling the loose ends that end up becoming the film’s main narrative thread. Jesse Plemons - as he was on Breaking Bad - makes for a great villain; an unfeeling sadist that covers up his depravity with a veneer of creepy good-naturedness, Todd Alquist is a prime example of a character you love to hate. But unsurprisingly, it’s Aaron Paul that delivers most of the goods in the film. In Breaking Bad, we witnessed Jesse’s evolution from Cap’n Cook to a confident and seasoned criminal. El Camino extrapolates that growth - without Mr. White, Jesse has to rely on his wits and street smarts more than ever, and the film is a thrilling portrait of his wiliness. Aaron Paul has always been a revelation, but El Camino definitively proves that he can carry his own weight.
The signature look and sound of Breaking Bad also makes a welcome return to El Camino. Veteran director of photography Marshall Adams reconstitutes the Albuquerque glow perfectly, and the gorgeous POV shots and time-lapse photography instantly recall the cinematic inventiveness of its parent series. El Camino’s cinematography is a shot of nostalgia, and it’s never more apparent than a masterful mid-film sequence where Jesse is tearing through a house in search of a hidden cache of drug money: A bird’s eye time-lapse that shows multiple Jesse Pinkmans ripping through an apartment complex, it’s an inventive piece of filmmaking that’s reminiscent of Breaking Bad’s best cinematic flourishes.
El Camino has neither groundbreaking revelations nor mythology-shattering twists, but its weaponized familiarity and quiet is more than enough. From its nail-biting suspense, subdued action, and typical Breaking Bad humor, it’s a genuine pleasure to dive back into these grimy waters that have obviously become a comfortable home for Vince Gilligan and company. There might not be a true justification for its existence, but Gilligan has crafted an irresistible treat for fans of the series and its characters. In the end, El Camino is just more Breaking Bad, and that’s good enough for me.
