He Went That Way

This film was hard work. I get that it's a true story and you have to be somewhat loyal to the reality of what actually happened, but man were these two tedious people to follow for 90 minutes. One is a wimp and the other is a psychopath. A psychopath can be a fun character if written correctly, but this one was just boring. He had nothing interesting to say and when he was killing someone it was just grim. There were times when the movie showed some promise. I liked the addition of the monkey (sorry, chimpanzee) to the story and the added dimension that brought to the proceedings. Too often though scenes felt very forced and like they were just there to give the film some kind of purpose. Basically I didn't care. The film never found a way to get me invested. This one wasn't for me. 5/10.

I could tell within the first 30 minute that this was written and directed by children who have no experience in real life. I would guess that their parent paid for their film school education, and they have watched a lot of movies, which they assume would give them the ability to make a movie of their own. But there is nothing original or interesting here. Sorry, boys, you failed. Your characters are false, your story is derivative, and the movie doesn't even have any style. It's such a shame that you wasted the efforts of decent actors like Zachary Quinto and Jacob Elordi. Time to give up filmmaking and find a real job. I hear Applebee's is hiring.

In 1964, professional ice skater and animal trainer Dave Pitts encountered a young hitchhiker who was on a killing spree. The story was fictionalized in Conrad Hilberry's book "Luke Karamazov," which is the source of "He Went That Way," the feature directing debut of cinematographer Jeff Darling. Jacob Elordi plays Bobby, the nasty, brash killer, while Zachary Quinto plays Jim, the diffident trainer. Jim has troubles, including a wobbly marriage, debt, and bad work prospects for the chimp. Bobby is apt to add to his woes, but the two bond anyway. Elordi's performance in "He Went That Way" lacks the discipline he applied to his work in "Priscilla" and "Saltburn." The film is laboriously quirky, with an indifferent script that feeds Elordi almost as much profanity as Al Pacino uses in "Scarface." The best entertainment is archival footage of the actual Spanky ice-skating, but the rest of the movie is not worth watching. "He Went That Way" is a mid-century indie film that tells the true story of Dave Pitts, an ice-skating chimpanzee who was a star in the Ice Capades. The film stars Australian cinematographer Jeffrey Darling and adapts the book "Luke Karamazov" by Conrad Hillberry. However, the film fails to find a steady tone, veers off into bizarre subplots, and features two underwhelming performances from the talented lead duo. Set in 1964, the story begins with an in medias res development involving a dead body and flashes back a few weeks earlier. Zachary Quinto's Jim Goodwin is driving his rickety old van through Death Valley when he picks up Jacob Elordi's Bobby, a lanky and movie star-handsome stranger. Bobby claims to be an Air Force veteran who has been roaming America and is now trying to reunite with his girlfriend in Milwaukee. Jim is driving to Chicago, and the movie is heavy with symbolism about the uncertainty of America in the aftermath of the JFK assassination, the Vietnam War, and social protests. The chimp, played by an actor in motion capture (with some puppetry as well), never really seems like an actual chimp. There's something sad about the idea of a chimp taken from West Africa, forced to train for hundreds of hours, and turned into a costumed performer who is now spending most of its life in a small cage in the back of a van. Zachary Quinto delivers icy and distant work as Jim, while Jacob Elordi goes way over the top, as if he had watched "Rebel Without a Cause" a dozen times and decided to turn up the James Dean impersonation to an 11. "He Went That Way" ends as it began with a series of self-conscious and eccentric developments that feel inauthentic and forced.

Why is the serial killer always sucking on his thumb? It's weird.. he has no likeable qualities at all.. He is just a terrible character all around. During the entire movie, all that I cared about was seeing that chimp away from that psycho. Come to find out, ol the chimp is a human actor, which makes it even more odd. At this point I'm just writing because I still need 228 characters to write.. What else? The serial killer has about two brain cells. He's a creep. It's a slow burn, I had to skip through some of it. Ok, 80 more characters.. there isn't much left to say, I'm in the middle of the movie and it looks like they might become friends.

It is 1964. Jim (Zachary Quinto) is driving across America with a trained monkey. He picks up hitchhiker Bobby (Jacob Elordi). There is something wrong with Jim. There are red flags flying all over the place and he's just strange. There is something really wrong with him. The monkey may be the most normal folk in that vehicle. From that beginning, I couldn't shake the feeling that it's all very fake. The fact that it took inspiration from a real incident matters very little. By the closing texts, I'm feeling completely lost in the strange characters in weird tones and questionable everything.

I truly wish this would have been a movie inspired by the true story, rather than what they gave us. The trailer looked so fantastic and the cast is ofc stellar, so I was very excited to watch it, but the movie although building suspense and tension, did not really do much with said tension. This could have been a 10min beautiful Short, instead it was pretty much the same thematic thing happening again and again with very little change. Also, why the hell was this movie so full of homoerotic subtext that then didn't go anywhere? If the movie had actually done something with that, it might have been interesting. But it didn't. By the end I was very much left with the feeling of "That's...it?" Very unsatisfactory, which I think is due to it being based on a real story. Would have preferred this as either a documentary or a more liberal, inspired-by but not beholden-to kinda story. Fantastic visuals though and solid acting, especially from Zachery Quinto. Elordi was also good. I also liked the suspense that was build in it by smaller scenes, just wish it had gone somewhere better.

Between its slow pace and relatively isolated settings, "He Went That Way" didn't at first feel like a movie worth watching. But as time went, this 60s serial-killer story - based on real events - grew thick with suspense and made me want to know how it would all end. Two men found themselves going in the same direction. A seemingly hapless entrepreneur and animal trainer named Jim - played exceptionally well by Zachary Quinto - ended up accepting a hitchhiker named Bobby - played intriguingly by Jacob Elordi. And then there was the chimp. Called Spanky, the ape was apparently a TV star, but he and his owner were down on their luck. Neither Jim nor his trained companion initially knew that Bobby was a serial killer and thief who had already (presumably; in this movie) ended the lives of numerous people. Just these three characters were the main focus of the entire movie. They were on the road and driving to Chicago. But somewhere along the way, truths revealed themselves and the proverbial brown stuff hit the fan. Disturbed delinquent Bobby held Jim and Spanky hostage and didn't really know what to do with them, especially after spending all that time with the duo on the road. These portions were strangely emotional and portentous. The script was simple and balanced by natural and nuanced performances from Quinto and Elordi. Their pitstops along the way brought a handful of characters onto the scene, each of whom did good work. The story was set in the 60s, around the same time Elordi's real-life counterpart was going around killing people in the United States. In actual history, Larry Ranes was the murderer who'd inadvertently ended up meeting and driving with animal trainer Dave Pitts. Quinto played Pitts and Elordi enlivened Ranes. The contrast between the two characters was elegantly balanced by the chimpanzee - who was played memorably by Phoenix Notary in an animatronic costume. She also happened to be the little girl who was smoking at one of Jim and Bobby's pitstops. As the story progressed, some strange shade of Stockholm's Syndrome seemed to be unravelling. This only added to the enigma, especially after all those times Jim barely made any serious effort to alert people to Bobby's true nature. "He Went That Way" was certainly not one of those movies that would've gotten everyone talking. But it managed to deliver decent entertainment and mild suspense, which gradually drove toward a memorable finale that was well worth the wait. --- --- --- Special shout-out to Christopher Guyton (as the gas station attendant), Troy Evans (as the motel desk clerk), Patrick J. Adams (as Saul), and Roman Arabia (as a car mechanic).

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