Review of El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019) by Colginator — 12 Oct 2019

Breaking Bad was one of those special shows where everything seemed to come together perfectly. The performances, the monologues, those gorgeous shots of Albuquerque and so much more worked in a way that escalated the series into being one of the greatest shows ever made. So even with the ideal closure that series finale provided, we were all still left wanting more. We got some of that with Better Call Saul, but now El Camino sets out to continue Jesse’s story after Breaking Bad and give us some more closure for one of our favourite meth dealers.

It starts off exactly where Breaking Bad left us, with Jesse speeding down an empty road finally free after months of being enslaved and forced to make meth by a group of white supremacists (that’s a heck of a strange sentence that only makes sense with a show as insane as Breaking Bad). But with the police on his trail, Jesse needs to find a way to get enough money together to get out of town and start a new life. Plus throughout the film Jesse is suffering with PTSD, being haunted by the ghosts of his past and his own mistakes.

The greatest compliment that I can give the film is that it fits in nicely with the rest of the series and upholds Breaking Bad's legacy. Vince Gilligan brings the same creative energy to this film that he brought to the original series and we get a lot of great moments ranging from nail biting suspense to the kind of dark humour that Breaking Bad always excelled at. Plus Aaron Paul is on top form as Jesse providing a few moments that are up there with some of his best moments from the show. It’s also really interesting seeing him play a younger Jesse during several flashbacks and how easily he can still slip in to the carefree version of him that we knew when the show was only just starting. Then only moments later the film will cut to the current Jesse, with the stark contrast in Paul’s performance being a strong reminder of how much the past few years ended up weighing on him. Outside of Aaron Paul we also get several cameos from some of the shows best characters (none of whom I’ll reveal, but the IMDB castlisting could give some surprises away). When we first see some of them it is a bit disjointing given that some of them are 6 years older since we’ve last seen them, but honestly I got sucked into the scenes so quickly that I quickly forgot about how different they looked. Two of the returning characters are playing substantial roles in the film and end up stealing the scenes that they’re in. The other cameos are a lot more limited and some of them were probably just fit in when the actors just had a spare day in their schedule to film their scenes. But they all work well within the context of the film and they all provide some interesting reflections on the morality of the past few years of Jesse’s life. Though the one defining feature that is lacking which the original show excelled at is the character development which was always at its core. Whilst it does provide us with a little more closure for what happened to Jesse, he’s still the same person that he was at the end of the show and the film doesn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know about him after watching him develop for the past 5 seasons. Also whilst the show does provide a more conclusive ending for Jesse, it doesn’t really offer us anything that beats those incredible seconds of relief and pure agony that the show originally left us on.

Ultimately the film is a victory lap for one of the greatest shows of all time. So if you’re somebody who’s never seen Breaking Bad, you’re probably not going to follow much of what’s going on here and I seriously recommend either buying the boxset or watching the series on Netflix since you’re missing out on some great television ever produced. But if you’re a Breaking Bad junkie who’s been jonesing for some more awesome moments, this film definitely delivers. And who knows, with so many great characters I’d be open to seeing some more spinoff films in the future. Maybe one day we might even learn whether Huell ever made it out of that room.