El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie


El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie is a 2019 American neo-Western and crime thriller film. Part of the Breaking Bad franchise, it serves as a sequel and epilogue to the television series Breaking Bad. It continues the story of Jesse Pinkman, who partnered with former teacher Walter White throughout the series to build a crystal meth empire based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Series creator Vince Gilligan wrote, directed, and co-produced El Camino, while Aaron Paul reprised his role as Jesse Pinkman. Several Breaking Bad actors also reprised their roles, including Jesse Plemons, Krysten Ritter, Charles Baker, Matt Jones, Robert Forster, Jonathan Banks, and Bryan Cranston. Forster died on the day of the film's release, making it one of his final on-screen appearances.
Gilligan began considering the story of El Camino while writing Breaking Bads series finale. He approached Paul with the idea for the film in 2017, near the tenth anniversary of the show's premiere, and completed the script several months later. Principal photography began in secret in New Mexico in November 2018, lasting nearly 50 days. The project remained unconfirmed until Netflix released a trailer on August 24, 2019.
El Camino received a digital release on Netflix and a limited theatrical run on October 11, 2019, with an AMC television premiere on February 16, 2020. It drew positive reviews from critics and garnered several award nominations, winning Best Movie Made for Television at the Critics' Choice Television Awards and Best Motion Picture Made for Television at the Satellite Awards. El Camino additionally gained four nominations at the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards for Outstanding Television Movie and other technical categories.

Plot

In a flashback to shortly before they leave Walter White's meth business, Jesse Pinkman asks Mike Ehrmantraut where he would go to start over. Mike says if he were younger, he would go to Alaska, which Jesse finds appealing. Jesse expresses the desire to make amends for past wrongdoing, but Mike cautions that starting over would make that impossible.
In the present, Jesse flees the Brotherhood compound in Todd Alquist's El Camino. He goes to the Albuquerque home of Skinny Pete and Badger, who hide the car and give Jesse a place to sleep. The next morning, Jesse calls Old Joe to dispose of the El Camino, but Joe leaves after discovering its LoJack. Pete devises a plan to make it appear Jesse fled after trading the El Camino for Pete's Ford Thunderbird. Pete and Badger give Jesse the money Walter gave them, and Badger drives south in the Thunderbird so it appears Jesse is headed to Mexico. Pete stays with the El Camino and waits for police to respond to the LoJack. Jesse departs in Badger's Pontiac Fiero. He learns from the radio news of Walter's fatal poisoning of a woman, and of Walter's death.
In a flashback to Jesse's captivity, Todd takes Jesse to Todd's apartment to help dispose of his cleaning lady, whom he killed after she discovered his hidden money. They sidestep Lou Schanzer, Todd's busybody neighbor, and bury the corpse in the Painted Desert. Jesse briefly holds the pistol Todd left unsecured, but Todd talks him into returning it.
In the present, Jesse searches Todd's apartment. He finds the new hiding place for Todd's money, but policemen Neil Kandy and Casey enter and begin searching. Jesse hides but holds Casey at gunpoint after Casey finds him. Neil disarms Jesse, who realizes they are not police but thugs also looking for Todd's money. To save himself, Jesse reveals he found the cash. Lou reports finding an old note from Todd, and Casey distracts him by feigning interest. Neil and Jesse bargain over the cash; to avoid alarming neighbors, Neil lets Jesse take a third. As they depart, Jesse recognizes Neil as the welder who built the tether that held him while he was forced to cook meth for the Brotherhood.
Jesse finds Ed Galbraith, the "disappearer," who wants $125,000 to aid Jesse, plus $125,000 for the previous occasion when Jesse hired him but failed to commit. Jesse is $1,800 short and Ed refuses to help. Knowing they are being surveilled, Jesse calls his parents and feigns willingness to surrender. After his parents and the police depart, Jesse sneaks into the Pinkman home and takes two pistols from his father's safe, a Colt Woodsman and an Iver Johnson Hammerless.
Jesse drives to Neil's shop, where Neil, Casey, and three friends celebrate with escorts and cocaine. After the escorts leave, he asks for $1,800, and Neil refuses. Seeing the Woodsman in Jesse's waistband, Neil challenges him to a duel for his share of the cash. Jesse agrees and when Neil reaches for his gun, Jesse shoots him with the Hammerless, which was concealed in his jacket pocket. Casey fires at Jesse, but Jesse kills him with Neil's gun. Jesse collects the driver's licenses of the remaining men and lets them leave after threatening to return and kill them if they notify police. He recovers Neil's cash and departs after setting an explosion to cover his tracks.
In a flashback, Walter and Jesse have breakfast after a multi-day meth cook. Estimating they will make more than $1 million, Walter laments having waited his entire life to do something special and calls Jesse lucky since he did not have to wait.
In the present, Ed drops Jesse off at a car parked near Haines, Alaska. Jesse gives Ed a letter for Brock Cantillo and acknowledges he does not want to say goodbye to anyone else. Driving off, Jesse has a flashback to his time with Jane Margolis. He tells her he admires what she said about going wherever the universe takes her, but she dismisses it as metaphorical and encourages him to make his own decisions. Jesse drives on, smiling at the prospect of a new life.

Cast

  • Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman, a former meth cook who once partnered with Walter White
  • Jesse Plemons as Todd Alquist, one of Jesse's captors and a member of the neo-Nazi gang that forces Jesse to cook meth, who appears in flashbacks before his death
  • Krysten Ritter as Jane Margolis, Jesse's deceased girlfriend, who appears in a flashback
  • Charles Baker as Skinny Pete, Jesse's friend
  • Matt Jones as Brandon "Badger" Mayhew, Jesse's friend
  • Robert Forster as Ed Galbraith, a vacuum cleaner store owner who has a side business as a criminal extractor relocating and giving them new identities.
  • Jonathan Banks as Mike Ehrmantraut, former business partner of Jesse and Walter, who appears in a flashback
  • Bryan Cranston as Walter White, meth kingpin, and Jesse's deceased former partner and high school chemistry teacher, who appears in a flashback
  • Scott Shepherd as Casey, Neil's associate
  • Scott MacArthur as Neil Kandy, a welder involved in Jesse's captivity
  • Tom Bower as Lou Schanzer, Todd's nosy neighbor
  • Kevin Rankin as Kenny, one of Jesse's captors
  • Larry Hankin as Old Joe, the owner of a local junkyard who previously helped Jesse and Walter with several activities connected to their meth business
  • Tess Harper as Diane Pinkman, Jesse's mother who has a strained relationship with her son
  • Michael Bofshever as Adam Pinkman, Jesse's father who has a strained relationship with his son
  • Marla Gibbs as Jean, an Albuquerque resident seen shopping at Best Quality Vacuum
  • Brendan Sexton III as Kyle, an employee at Kandy Welding Co.
  • Johnny Ortiz as Busboy, who appears in a flashback serving Jesse and Walter's table at Owl Café
  • Todd Terry as Austin Ramey, Special Agent in Charge of the El Paso division of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
  • Julie Pearl as Suzanne Ericsen, Assistant District Attorney of Bernalillo County.
  • David Mattey as Clarence / Man Mountain, who appears dropping off the women at Kandy Welding Co.

    Themes and style

While El Caminos plot focuses on Jesse Pinkman escaping to Alaska, writer and director Vince Gilligan stated that thematically, the film centers on Jesse's transformation from a boy to a man. As Jesse spent the entirety of Breaking Bad as Walter White's partner, El Camino in contrast shows Jesse coming to terms with his past and making his own decisions, free of White's influence. This theme is prevalent in the flashbacks that bookend El Camino, with Mike Ehrmantraut at the beginning, and Walter White and Jane Margolis at the end. Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone detailed that while these scenes serve as a reminder of who Jesse used to be and all that he lost, "all three flashbacks are also about the way that Jesse has been forced by tragic circumstance to grow up and think more about his place in the universe and the impact he has on others. And they're about setting him on the road where Ed Galbraith|Ed leaves him at the film's conclusion". Aaron Paul described his character Jesse as someone who went through hell and back multiple times and is still paying for those sins, but Donna Bowman of The A.V. Club remarked that in freeing his ambitions from Walter White's manipulations, Jesse found his own redemption and avoided his mentor's fate, finally giving himself a chance for a future.
The opening flashback with Jesse and Mike also sets the theme of Jesse wanting to start over while also making things right with his past. Though Mike warned that starting over would make it impossible to make amends, Sepinwall noted that Jesse was able to repay several emotional debts from the series with rectifying gestures throughout the film: giving a proper goodbye to his friends Badger and Skinny Pete, apologizing to his parents one last time, getting revenge against Neil Kandy and Casey, paying back his literal debt to Ed Galbraith, and sending his farewell letter of apology to Brock Cantillo. Placing his own analysis on Jesse's final duel with Neil, Gilligan interpreted the scene as more than just Jesse getting the cash he needed for his escape, but also as a way of exorcising demons that plagued him from the events of the series. Both Gilligan and Paul speculated that Jesse would still be haunted by these demons, even in his new life in Alaska, but had at least achieved some form of vengeance for his past by ridding the world of an evil person.
Breaking Bad was often categorized as a contemporary Western; this theme is also present in El Camino. Gilligan expressed his admiration for director Sergio Leone and his love for the Western genrehe originally wanted to film Breaking Bad in the CinemaScope format Leone used for the Dollars Trilogy and got his wish in El Camino. Critics noted the duel between Jesse and Neil as being directly in the style of Western films; Gilligan referenced The Good, the Bad and the Ugly to give the same feel for that scene. Likewise, composer Dave Porter used Western elements in the film's score as he had in the two television series. Ben Travers of IndieWire traced the film's Western influences to its "sweeping landscapes, lone survivor, and final stand-off", while Matt Zoller Seitz of Vulture called El Caminos title "unabashedly Western-tinged" and cited the final shot's lack of overt sentimentality as being true to the spirit of classic Westerns.