El Camino, written and directed by Vince Gilligan - 9 out of 10

El Camino, written and directed by Vince Gilligan
9 out of 10


Just as this very good motion picture was released, we have learned that one of the bets actors, member of the cast of El Camino, has died...Robert Foster has been nominated for an Academy Award for his tremendous work on Jackie Brown.

Aaron Paul is now in the leading role, alone, although Bryan Cranston, as the infamous drug lord Walter White, does make a short comeback, from the depths of the memory of Jesse Pinkman.
The latter is try to find the strength to put his life together after the dramatic trauma of the imprisonment, torture by the monsters that used him to cook methamphetamines and to play sick, cruel games with a chained human being.

One of them, the vicious, if so calm and restrained in appearance, uses Jesse to cover up the murder of his gentle, honest, efficient Mexican housekeeper, an unfortunate woman who stumbled upon the money hidden by the beast within rows of Encyclopedia books, carved up and filled with in excess of million dollars.
This is when we see that the hero of El Camino is so devastated psychologically that he seems to have no energy, will to live differently left, given that he finds a gun in the glove compartment, could use it to gain his freedom by shooting the bastard, contemptible jerk, or at least to threaten him that he would do that and escape, but he has no more spirit for that.

In a classic of psychology by the genius Viktor Frankl, the author describes his experience as a prisoner in the Nazi World War II camps, where he could easily identify those who would die soon, when they gave up the cigarettes used as an alternative currency, a sign that they no longer had a Will to Live.
Jesse however is lucky to break free as a result of the thunderous finale of Breaking Bad, in which the inventive Walter White disposes of all his beastly enemies.

The protagonist of El Camino is now a suspect and the police, FBI and other agencies are all looking for him and when he sees two in official looking jackets, he thinks they are the real thing...albeit they are just pretending.
Pinkman is looking for the mountain of cash that Todd has hidden somewhere else in his huge apartment, once it had been found by the maid who has paid with her life for the mistake and the honesty of mentioning the discovery, but in scenes recalling the end of the glorious The Conversation, by the iconic Francis Ford Coppola and with the equally legendary Gene Hackman, the walls are stripped and nothing is found...not the money anyway.

El Camino is an entertaining follow up to the immensely popular series, even if it might not have the same success.