Critic Reviews

That this film can stand on its own, all while paying tribute to the show that helped birth it, is maybe the most impressive escape act of them all.

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie is a tense, well-written story with a brilliant performance from Aaron Paul.

The film is a visceral, ruminative, and emotionally satisfying epilogue in which the broken Jesse reconciles with his past and searches for the hope and humanity he’d lost—or, rather, been denied by Walt.

Paul already has a pile of awards acknowledging his acting talents, but his work in El Camino is staggering, given the high difficulty factor that comes with having to play so many variations of this character.

Aaron Paul scintillates, once more, as his Breaking Bad character.

The result is a project that feels true to its source, a well-crafted epilogue for a beloved character who vividly understands the concept of consequences.

While it strikes a different visual tone and moves at a faster pace than many of the TV show episodes (as one might expect from a feature-length story), thanks to Gilligan’s masterful writing and directing, and the bold and powerful and layered performance from Aaron Paul, it’s an extended epilogue quite worthy of the “Breaking Bad” brand.

What’s lacking in this entertaining pulp quest, I think, is some essential surprise.

Considering he’s spent nine whole seasons within his quirky New Mexico universe, there was never any doubt that Gilligan loves his characters, but goddamn does El Camino bring that idea home.

Refreshingly, Gilligan doesn’t try to run away from his TV-writing instincts: Each proceeding stage in Jesse’s high-stakes predicament plays out like its own distinct episode, a further blurring of the lines between media that might’ve been distracting in a bygone era, but is right at home on Netflix.