With Vince Gilligan’s “El Camino” movie releasing October 11th on Netflix, hundreds of thousands of Breaking Bad Fans finally got their long awaited ending of Jesse Pinkman’s odyssey through the mess Walter White pulled him into.
The show didn’t only stand out for its great story-telling and unique visual design (camera work, color-grading etc.) but also for the ingeniously executed transformation of the protagonist Walter White into the ultimate antagonist Heisenberg, turning Jesse Pinkman from his partner into his victim, who does nothing more than losing and suffering from White’s tyrannical behavior the further you progress through the story.
The show’s finale was quite anticlimactic to many of it’s fans though, probably because many expected a different outcome and a more spectacular ending of Heisenberg’s ‘reign’.
In my opinion it was rather sophisticated and poetically intended by Gilligan because he wanted to show that in the end, Heisenberg was still Walter White and Walter White was still an ordinary man who went insane. An ordinary man who could still bleed, who could still die from his cancer, no matter how powerful he became. He was still not even worth the bullet of the person he hurt the most when Jesse Pinkman refused to shoot him and just let him to do it himself. He left him to die alone, miserable, defeated and perhaps even too much of a coward to end it himself. In my opinion the statement behind the last episode’s script was so much more powerful than any spectacular death could have been (thinking of Gus Fring here). So much for that.
The movie El Camino kind of filled a ‘plot hole’, that was left after Breaking Bad ended and the fans were rather unsatisfied with having no idea what would happen to Jesse Pinkman – now that he became a character the entire world felt bad for and sympathized with.
The movies plot is not exactly long or full of twists. Jesse escapes the scene of Heisenberg’s mayhem in a black Chevrolet El Camino, stops by his friends Skinny and Badger where he recovers a little, gets Badgers car and their money to run away again after the police found out where he is. He manages to get downtown, knowing that a lot of money is still hidden in Todd’s apartment. Frequently the movie goes back and forth between flashbacks and Jesse’s present to explain details and add information about the past, for example how he knew about the money. Here Gilligan also managed to brilliantly visualize how much of a monster Todd really was. When Jesse enters the apartment with the keys he took from Todd’s body, he takes the entire place apart to find the money.
When he finally found it two other guys in police jackets come in, starting to search the place. Jesse couldn’t get away in time and after a stand-off he finds out that these guys weren’t policemen and also there for the money. He manages to convince them to keep him alive if he shows them where the money is and eventually gets away with a third of the almost a million dollars in there. He also notices that the men were from the Kandy Welding Company, who built the cage he was kept in to cook meth for Uncle Jack.
Calling almost every vacuum-store in Albuquerque, he finally finds Ed the cleaner, the guy who offers people a fresh start for 125.000$. Ed takes 125.000$ for Jesse bailing on him the first time he wanted to use his services and demands 125.000 more for helping him out now. Jesse is 1.800$ short and fails to convince Ed to help him anyways, so he is forced to find more money.
He tricks his parents (and the police watching them) into going somewhere else to get him so he could sneak into their house and get two guns he hid in there. Armed, he enters the Kandy Welding Company, killing the two men from before in an unexpected stand-off and taking their share of the money. He pays Ed who takes him to Alaska, with fresh papers, a new identity and a new car for a new beginning.
As usual, the acting and camera work are outstanding and the movie doesn’t lack tense moments that make you hold your breath. I felt pulled right back into the world of Breaking Bad and they did a great job delivering that exact feeling once more.
The plot also makes a pretty important point about effort and reward, that is pretty obviously told in my opinion. Jesse was used to half-assing his way through his entire life and getting away with it somehow but when he confronts Ed he hits a dead end with the remainders of his attitude. It’s only 1.800$ but that serves as a powerful symbol for integrity and the necessary effort to make a change. It’s a matter of principle to Ed and a necessary condition for Jesse to go and confront his inner devil, that partially got him into this situation in the first place.He learns that 50% are not enough. And sometimes, 99% are not enough either. He has to go, confront the evil, risk his life and give 100% to get the thing he wants the most. And if that’s not a classic hero story Breaking Bad style, then I don’t know what it is.
And many say that the movie still didn’t match its full potential, considering the brilliant work Gilligan did on Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul. But honestly, in my opinion I didn’t need to. Most of the high expectations were based on the shows success and the show had much more time to develop the characters, stories and plot-twists it was so famous for. There is only so much you can squeeze into 2h of a movie while trying to remain the usual spirit and quality.
El Camino did a great job doing exactly what it was supposed to do: Providing fans with a proper ending to Jesse Pinkman’s journey. It didn’t deliver anything more or less, while still staying thrilling and satisfying.
It may not be a Triple-A blockbuster but it’s a damn good extra for every Breaking Bad fan out there. And if you haven’t seen it yet, you definitely should!
Old Warehouse by Sali Herman
