El Camino : A Breaking Bad film review

• I enjoyed it for what it was but it could have had some improvements. There are no spoilers here so let’s get to it.

Breaking Bad fans rejoice the long anticipated movie El Camino dropped this past Friday and it was interesting to say the least. There were talks about the film in the last few years but here it is finally on Netflix. If you’ve seen the entire five seasons of AMC’s Breaking Bad then you’re familiar with the two main characters Walter White and Jesse Pinkman and their dangerous adventures in the meth drug game. I’m not here to recap what happened in all five seasons so go ahead and watch it if you haven’t because it’s one of the greatest crime dramas in TV history in my opinion. Now to the film, this film follows Jesse Pinkman’s recovery through the hell he’s been through at the end of season five, and his determination to start a new life with a clean slate ( and I mean a clean slate of leaving the person he was behind him) from the help of a mysterious man who Walter White had the help from at the end of season five. With that said, Vince Gilligian the creator of the show had a few years to play around the film idea and he produced an adequate showing, but it could have had more and that goes to my next point. I feel that it could have been done as a miniseries because I wanted more characters to have screen time and additional plot lines that could have been used as obstacles that would have gave Jesse troubles from reaching his goal of anonymity from the drug world he left behind. Having said all of that, Aaron Paul’s performance as Jesse was great as usual and the rest of the performances from the cast were also good. The one thing that I noticed was done well were the “flashbacks” from other seasons. I put the word flashbacks in quotes because it was indeed a flashback in the proper definition, but there was a backstory to the flashback in a time period within the original narrative of the show that viewers never seen. This explains certain outcomes to what eventually happened in the present day of the film. The last two things I want to commend is the cinematography that gave the same Breaking Bad look that everyone enjoyed and the musical scores that added suspense to intense scenes. Overall, it was a solid film. Would I watch it again? Sure and maybe this time I might even like it even more. If I were to give the film a rating out of 5, I would say it teeters on a solid 3/5. If you’ve seen Breaking Bad and have seen El Camino comment your thoughts, like and follow for my future posts. Until next time, peace and keep it real.