Vince Gilligan’s “El Camino: A Breaking Bad Story” may not have been what some “Breaking Bad” fans expected, but this was never supposed to play like another episode of ‘Bad.’ What “El Camino” actually purports to be is a redemptive epilogue for Jesse Pinkman (indelibly played by Aaron Paul).
We all knew Walter White (Bryan Cranston) wasn’t going to play a major role in this “sequel,” because, after all, he had met his demise in the series’ finale. However, being chained up by neo-Nazis and forced to cook the infamous blue meth he was so good at making took a toll on Jesse. Yes, he escaped, but he’s now damaged, a tortured soul haunted by the demons he left behind. Yes, he’s alive, but also wanted by authorities, announced as a “person of interest” by cops with more questions than answers.
Instead of running away, Jesse decides to stay, the viewer isn’t necessarily sure why — we are kept in the dark throughout about Jesse’s motivations, which renders the film a fascinating foray into a distraught psyche. The pitstops Jesse makes along the way have an air of mystery and fascination, which is why I’d rather not give too much away here. Part of the pleasure of watching “El Camino” is that you expect the unexpected, it’s meant to be seen knowing as little as possible.
Using flashbacks, Gilligan brings back a slew of deceased characters in ”El Camino,” including Jonathan Banks’ Mike Ehrmantraut and, a little less successfully, Cranston’s Walter White, the latter in a scene that feels a little too forced-on and more like an excuse to bring back the man they called “Heisenberg.” Regardless, this is one of the few missteps by Gilligan in “El Camino,” a movie filled with taut, tense and terrific sequences.
If anything, it’s the characters we least expect that steal the dramatics in “El Camino” — Jesse Plemons’ Todd, a disturbingly calm psychopath reminds us why he was a standout in the final season. The late, great Robert Forster returns as Ed, also known as “The Disappearer,” a man who runs the “Best Quality Vacuum” store as a front for an operation in which he can give fugitives and non-fugitives alike a new life and identity.
Gilligan wanted to finish this story because not only was he infatuated with the New Mexican crime world he had created more than a decade ago, but, more importantly, because he believed Jesse deserved his fate to be known. And so, “El Camino” turns out to be a sequence of episodic set-pieces, taking place in both past and present, involving Jesse and the path to redemption that he seeks. But unlike the five seasons of ‘Bad,’ he’s finally in the driver’s seat for this one, present in every scene as the movie is shot from his point of view. Paul, in a career-peak performance, takes full advantage of the spotlight he rarely had previously, mostly because he was outshone by a monumental performance from Bryan Cranston, right up there with James Gandolfini’s rendition of Tony Soprano.
Gilligan manages to make a suspenseful, well-acted, moving, superbly shot and edited movie out of “El Camino”. If anything, this is a coda that fans of ‘Bad’ should be greeting with open arms. An amalgam of everything we love about the assured creative hand brought to ‘Bad’ and its spinoff “Better Call Saul.” [B+]