Delayed Reaction: El Camino

The Pitch: How can we do more with Breaking Bad without fucking up all the goodwill people have for how it ended?

Jesse Pinkman tries to get a new start after the events of Breaking Bad.

How shows end has changed a lot over the years. It's still crazy to me to think that the final episode of I Love Lucy, one of the defining TV shows of any era, is just a random episode. A little more recently than that, a finale meant a special two part episode that tacked on closure (think, Cheers, Friends,Seinfeld). Lately, thanks to binging and the cable TV model, shows get arched out for a finale well in advanced much more often and thoroughly. How I Met Your Mother virtually changed format for its final season. Parks and Rec jumped ahead three years and had what I dubbed a "victory lap season". And there's the trend of shows getting brought back from the dead (Will & Grace, Roseanne). The whole idea of what a series is has changed. Buffy the Vampire Slayer existed in comics. Downton Abbey just got a movie with a theatrical release. Gilmore Girls got a chance to attempt to fix its ending*.

*Note: None of this is wholly unique. Star Trek alone matches nearly all of these scenarios. It's far more common now though.

So, as great as Breaking Bad's finale was, it didn't bother me at all to hear about El Camino: a movie that continues the story. Part of my ease had to do with the fact Better Call Saul, the prequel series to Breaking Bad, has already been awesome without damaging the original. Mostly though, it's the fact that I didn't expect El Camino to function as a new finale to Breaking Bad. Instead, it's just a chance to hang out in the universe a little longer and put a few more bows on things.

El Camino functions as two Jesse-centric Breaking Bad episodes. It's methodical and tense, just like the series; more similar to something like the episode when Jesse is trapped in the meth-heads' house. Aaron Paul has already proven several times over that he can carry an episode of Breaking Bad, so the lack of Walter White in the lead role is hardly felt. There's no further mythology-building. It's just Jesse trying to find a way out of his situation.

It's not an essential text to Breaking Bad. It's more like footnote or story in the appendix. It answers a question that didn't need an answer - what happened to Jesse? - in a way that doesn't step on its predecessor's toes while still being wholly satisfying.

Back in the days before streaming or DVDs, when syndication was the only way to catch up on a show, there used to be this wonderful thing where you could discover an episode of your favorite show that you never knew existed. I loved when that would happen. It's like discovering a secret track on your favorite album. Well, El Camino is kind of like that. It's like I just found two episodes of Breaking Bad that I didn't know existed. Not my favorite episodes. Not episodes that dramatically change the series. But still, an opportunity to hang out in that world for a couple more hours.

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Movie Reaction: 21 Bridges

Formula: Bridge of Spies - spies + 20 bridges

For some reason, nearly every screen grab I found of this is a picture of him showing 

his badge like this, but from multiple different scenes.

 
I should've watched 21 Bridges at 5pm on a Saturday on TNT in 2002.

I can't describe the movie better than that, but it's not going to mean anything to a lot of people. You see, especially in the 90s and into the 00s, there was this brand of crime thriller that wasn't really an event film that you had to see right away, but if you caught it while channel surfing, you'd lose an afternoon to watching it. A lot of these were adapted from John Grisham or Tom Clancy novels. I always think of The Negotiator as emblematic of this type of movie. I'd miss the first 15 minutes of it but still have a basic idea of what's happening. I'd get to the end and wouldn't have a single thought about it. The twist was unexpected without being surprising. The action scenes would be functional without being impressive. My only thought about the lead performer would be "I'm glad he's getting work" (the only time it ever seemed to be a "she" was when it was Ashley Judd).

That's pretty much how I feel about 21 Bridges. It's a very straightforward movie. A couple criminals stumble onto a massive cocaine stash. They run into some cops and kill several; enough to get all exits from Manhattan Island closed down for the night while the police hunt them down. The lead detective (Chadwick Boseman), known for his aggressive tactics, runs the manhunt and, in the process, uncovers a bigger conspiracy. You could probably guess a dozen scenes that are in the movie just from that, but that doesn't take away from the enjoyment of the movie; no more than seeing your favorite sports team win with the same basic offensive strategy every week against different opponents doesn't get boring.

Chadwick Boseman is still a bit of a mystery to me. I like seeing him on screen, but I don't associate him with anything. Even as Black Panther, he mostly cedes the interesting character work to whoever his screen partner is. I know I've seen him in other movies too, but I couldn't tell you what without checking IMDB. Still, I see him show up on screen and, at the very least, I think "Oh, this movie is going to be fine". Siena Miller plays a narcotics officer working with Boseman, and, I'm just never going to reach a point where I recognize Siena Miller. I've seen her in many movies, often in prominent roles. Still, I spent most of the movie thinking "Who is that? She's too young to be Maria Bello. Maybe a brunette actress dyed her hair? I'm sure it will come to be eventually." It didn't. She is also fine in her role. J.K. Simmons is captain of the precinct all the dead officers belonged to. He's fine too. Stephan James is the more sympathetic robber in the manhunt. The movie goes out of its way to make it clear that he didn't actually kill any of the cops. James is - you guessed it - fine. I was surprised how long it took me to recognize Taylor Kitsch as the other robber - the one who actually killed all the cops. I think I'm too used to his muscular Tim Riggins look. He's satisfactory, and by that, I mean he's fine.

If you can't tell, I'm having a hard time working up strong feelings about this movie. It is exactly what it's billed as: an entertaining crime thriller. There are some good chase scenes and shootouts. Good actors bounce off one another. The montage of the police actually shutting Manhattan off did a really nice job of showing how big that undertaking is. And, the pace of the movie surprised me a bit. It sort of stutter-steps intentionally. I had trouble figuring out if I was 45 minutes or 1h15 minutes into the movie, which was fun. It made it harder to assign it a three act structure. I guess I'll leave it with this: to all of you people out there complaining about the death of the mid-budget "movies for grown-ups", here you go. 21 Bridges is going to barely cover its budget or fall very short of it depending on how you do the math. And it's a perfectly fine movie. So go see it. Otherwise, this kind of movie is going to go away.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Oh, one last thing.

Movie Theater LVP (Least Valuable Patrons): Let me set the scene for you. It's the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I'm at the local multiplex for a 1 pm showing of 21 Bridges. It's a theater with the fancy chairs and assigned seating. I get into my theater and go to my seat, only to find in the seats next to me, there are two grown-ass adults laying down horizontally (the arm rests lift up), making out. And this isn't even in some corner of the theater. It's central seating. I'm a rule follower, so I sit down at my seat anyway and do my best to ignore these people. Thankfully, I was already listening to a podcast on my headphones, so it was easier to ignore them. I could only partly hear them, but I could tell that they thought this was very funny. Clearly, I was the weird one for sitting down and not being scandalized by what they were doing. So, this carries on for about 5 more minutes before they both get up and leave the theater, never to be seen again. As I see it, there are two scenarios to explain these people. 1) They are going around to random empty-ish theaters at 1 pm on a Sunday afternoon to make out semi-publically. Real suburban thrill-seekers, I guess. 2) They saw the 10:30 am showing on a Sunday, and all the people getting bullets through their heads got them frisky. So they started making out and continued all the way through the credits, after the employees cleaned the theater up, and nearly into the next showing.

So, that was annoying. I mean, it's still better than someone talking throughout the movie or looking at their phone. Something about the time, day, and movie really threw me off though. Drop their ages by about a decade and make it a 10pm Friday showing of Last Christmas: That would still be annoying, but it wouldn't be wholly unexpected.

Maybe if it happens again, I should just silently stare at them and eat my popcorn. I mean, my "creepy loner at a movie theater" credentials are already unimpeachable.

Movie Reaction: Knives Out

Formula: Murder on the Orient Express * Parasite

Murder mystery movies are a simple pleasure. They satisfy the most basic movie desires. There's a big question, and the whole movie is focused on giving you that answer. There's no playing with the ambiguities of life. A murder mystery that doesn't answer all your questions about plot mechanics is a failure. Plain and simple. It's very easy to judge a whodunit. What's also nice is that often the characters are not complex. Everyone is a type. The more exaggerated, the better. If a filmmaker includes all this and still wants to find space to rant about something with a bit more thematic heft, then more power to him/her.

You can call Knives Out a throwback or a genre exercise. There's a lot of coded language people use to describe something that's entertaining without being "substantial". I just call it a good time.

The story comes right out of an Agatha Christie novel (although this is a original story by Rian Johnson). A rich and successful mystery novel writer, Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), is found dead in his house in an apparent suicide. A week later, a private investigator (Daniel Craig) with an exaggerated Southern drawl (an accent that doesn't belong to any southern state) shows up to find out if it he was actually murdered. So, he rounds up all the family members and others around the house on the night of the death and questions them in order to piece together what happened that night. Every single family member fits a different idea you have about rich people.

• The "self-made" daughter who believes she followed in her father's footsteps by starting her own company. (Jamie Lee Curtis).
• The son who has made a career out of using his father's success: he handles the publishing of his father's books (Michael Shannon).
• The son-in-law who loves the country club lifestyle and thinks he's woke because he can lightly quote Hamilton (Don Johnson).
• The widowed daughter-in-law who fancies herself an internet influencer and no doubt has an Etsy account (Toni Collette).
• The adult grandson playboy who wears both his privilege his selection of sweaters and scarves proudly (Chris Evans).
• The SJW granddaughter going to a liberal college who pretends the family money doesn't mean anything to her (Katherine Langford).
• The teenage grandson who is an alt-right troll (Jaeden Martell).
• The trophy wife daughter-in-law (Riki Lindhome).
• His mother, who is somehow still alive, even though no one's actually sure how old she is (K Callan).

The other key individual is Harlan's full-time nurse (Ana de Armas) who he has befriended over the years.

Writer/director spends a long time winding it all up, introducing the characters and revealing their motivations. I don't mind that time spent though, because each character is interesting in his or her own way. Most have secrets. And, all the actors are having a blast in their roles. I have a hard time even picking a favorite character. Martell and Lindhome get short shirft. The movie never develops Martell beyond calling him a neo-Nazi, which would be a better zinger if we had any sense of his character. Lindhome just plain isn't a character. I imagine it's by design, but it is strange to see someone as funny as Lindhome in this and not be used. Toni Collette has some of my favorite line readings. Don Johnson has an effortless sleaziness to him. Jamie Lee Curtis plays on the Jamie Lee Curtis persona marvelously. I really could just recite everything I liked about the performances for a thousand more words. Instead, I'll just say that they are all deliciously awful people.

Well, except for Ana de Armas. She's the moral center of the movie. At least, that's how she starts off. I can't say anything about her by the end. This is a whodunit after all. Apparently, I've stumbled onto the perfect filmography to be familiar with de Armas. I've seen her in several movies, including Blade Runner 2049. This is by far her best showcase though. Previously, I've mostly seen her in "sympathetic hot girl" roles. Hopefully, this will lead to much better parts, because she really knocks this out of the park. I'd say more about Daniel Craig, except the trailers have said enough. He relishes every line he gets to say with this character. If this turns into a movie franchise with him solving assorted crimes, I'd happily watch more. This isn't really his movie though. He's just another accent (literally and figuratively).

Knives Out, as much as I liked it (it's certain to be in my yearly top 10), is "just" a murder mystery movie. Don't expect more out of it. It's not trying to be smarter than the genre. There's no attempt to mix it with anything else. Writer/director Rian Johnson gets to the resolution honestly. There is an answer. I found it satisfying. I didn't feel tricked. It's all there on the screen for the most part. My brain isn't wired to get obsessed with putting it all together before the movie is ready to tell me the answer, so I had a blast just going along for the ride.

Honestly. the only thing that bothered me about the movie was some of the class commentary. I liked what Johnson had to say about if in the film, but a couple aspects were more clumsily-handled than the rest. As I mentioned before, the alt-right grandson was completely pointless. He was more punchline than character. If he was going to be that pointless, just excise him from the movie. And, there's one scene that I've heard a lot of people praise, calling it "the dinner table scene". It's reminiscent to the stereotypical Thanksgiving, multi-generational political discussion in which the whole family carries on several arguments simultaneously. I didn't care for this scene. I thought it was much blunter than most of the rest of the movie's commentary. If felt like the movie didn't trust the audience to pick up its message otherwise, so it spelled it out in this scene. Maybe it won't bother me as much when I see it again, but it seemed really clunky this first time.

OK, this went way longer than I thought it would. I loved this movie. It's an expertly crafted ode to the murder mystery stories that came before it. The cast is game for it. The look and style of the movie is evocative. It never takes itself more seriously than it absolutely must. This was a pleasure to watch. I could watch 20 more movies just like it, or just enjoy this as a one-and-done. It's the nearest successor I can find to Clue.

Verdict: Strongly Recommend