While it’s unlikely that anyone will acuse the “El Camino” movie from Netflix of being overly deep, fans of Breaking Bad will probably get their money’s worth. Many reviewers have described it as at least entertaining if nothing else.
Reviewers think of El Camino as well-executed even though it doesn’t really add very many new wrinkles to the beloved story. The movie starts off with Jesse Pinkman being visited by the owner of Rocker Salvage Old Joe. Pinkman and Old Joe reminisce about a time in Breaking Bad when magnets were used to destroy evidence. It hearkens back to “Magnets” and “yeah science!” Which will be a crowd-pleaser.
This indicates that the audience for El Camino is mostly going to be people who were nostalgic for the old show, without necessarily appealing to anyone else really. The movie was written by the same guy who created the series, Vince Gilligan whom also directed. The movie plays like an extended Breaking Bad episode from the beautiful cinematography to the perfect dialogue.
It should be no surprise to anyone that it’s definitely a different sort of Jesse in El Camino. He’s not all full of energy like he used to be at the beginning of Breaking Bad. He’s a lot more like who we see him as towards the end of the show where he spends a long time chained outside in a pit, making meth. The version of Pinkman from the movie is haunted, exhausted, empty. He only just got away from the gang that imprisoned him in the season finale of the TV show. We are essentially picking up right from there.
He doesn’t have a lot of time to relish his freedom, however, since the cops are already getting on his trail. Jesse can only just manage to stay ahead of them. Paul puts on a master performance now that he’s alone on stage without Cranston to steal his thunder as much. One of the interesting wrinkles here is that the actor is 40 now, even though the character is supposed to still be in his twenties. The interesting thing about that is that it works since it makes sense that being locked outside and chained to a wall for months at a time is probably going to have a negative effect on your physical appearance.
The title of the movie, “El Camino” essentially means a road or a means of travel. This sets up the whole theme which is about trying to find your way to where you want to go. In this case, Pinkman is trying to finally achieve freedom, in every sense of the word.
There’s a lot that harkens back to Breaking Bad, including the scenery, the gallows humor, the grit of the show. The feel of Breaking Bad definitely had a Western vibe, with open terrain and characters facing off against each other in duels of one kind of another. El Camino embraces this idea and dials it up to 11. There are more than a few duels of one type or another in the movie, and the bleakness of everything is emphasized.
The movie even adds some extra last cameos for characters from the show like Pinkman’s girlfriend Jane, the ex-cop Mike, and more than a few others. There’s nothing that’s overtly surprising here. It’s mostly just a callback and cash in for Breaking Bad. The flashbacks were amazing, the viewer gets tons of insight into what Jesse was going through mentally, emotionally and physically. Instead of following Heisenberg through his day-to-days, its great to have a film dedicated to a beloved character like Jesse Pinkman.
If you loved Breaking Bad then getting a bit more of the same might be just what you would prefer to see. El Camino gives Breaking Bad fans closure to one of the best TV shows ever made!
