El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie movie review (2019)

If you're hazy on what happened in the AMC hit, be warned that “El Camino” does not hold your hand. It is not designed to exist as a standalone movie as much as something watched after the end of season five, although I do like that it didn’t happen right away, giving its creator and star more time to enrich the project. What might have felt more like a cash grab were it made in the wake of the award-winning final season feels more creatively driven six years later. However, you need to remember what happened at the end of season five. Most importantly, that Walter rescued Jesse from the meth-dealing Nazis who had been holding him prisoner. We learn more about that captivity in “El Camino,” and running from trauma is a major theme of the film.

Gilligan picks up right away chronologically. Walter and most of the Nazis, including Todd (Jesse Plemons), are dead. Jesse has fled the scene, screaming and speeding into the night. Naturally, the authorities are descending on the massacre, and they have a few questions for Mr. Pinkman, who has one goal: get out of New Mexico. “El Camino” actually opens with a flashback to a conversation with a familiar face that I won’t spoil (there are a few in “El Camino,” although the big ones don’t feel like fan service as much as grace notes for Jesse’s arc) about Jesse wanting to get out of Albuquerque and escaping all the way to Alaska. For 122 minutes, that’s the main drive of “El Camino” – getting Jesse to Alaska. He will have to evade the cops and some new enemies to make it there, but “El Camino” isn’t exactly a thriller (despite a wonderful “High Noon” showdown). It’s more of a reclamation of a classic TV character from screaming victim of fate who was manipulated by Walter White to someone who’s ready to make his own decisions.  

“Breaking Bad” was always a deeply cinematic show—it was shot on film—and so the transition to a feature feels organic. What I mean is that "El Camino" is both cinematic and like the show, as Gilligan uses the bright lights of New Mexico and the dark shadows of the world that Jesse has to descend into once more well. If anything, the visual language of his show was often underrated, and absolutely none of that is lost here. Gilligan could easily transfer his skills with composition to the big screen (and this will play on a few of them in conjunction with its Netflix run).