Movie Review: 'He Went That Way'

He Went That Way (2024)

Directed by Jeffrey Darling

Written by Evan M. Weiner

Starring Jacob Elordi, Zachary Quinto, Chimpanzee

Release Date January 5th, 2023

Published January 7th, 2023

He Went That Way is a deeply misguided movie. Despite a unique true story basis, the movie cannot figure out what it wants to be. Is it a thriller? Is it a road movie? Is it a thrilling road movie? It's deeply unclear and wildly strange but not in a very interesting way. The film stars of-the-moment star Jacob Elordi as a serial murderer and Zachary Quinto as the trainer of a world-famous chimpanzee named Spanky. A road movie featuring a serial murderer, an animal trainer, and a chimpanzee should be way more interesting than what we get in He Went That Way.

Jim Goodwin (Quinto) is slowly losing everything. His marriage is struggling, he and his chimpanzee, Spanky, have lost their television show, and now he's on the road and possibly having to beg someone who owes him money to finally pay him. With his vehicle breaking down, Jim stops at a gas station. There, he meets Bobby Falls (Jacob Elordi), a drifter thumbing a ride on Route 66. Jim offers to take him as far as Chicago, Jim's destination, and they hit the road.

On their first stop, a roadside motel, Bobby reveals that he's carrying a gun. He threatens Jim, steals his wallet and ring, and demands that Jim take him to Michigan where Bobby claims he has a girl waiting for him. In flashbacks following this scene, we see flashes of some of the murders Bobby has committed. He's murdered several people since coming back from, what we assume is Vietnam, though the movie isn't clear about this idea. The film actually opens with Bobby dumping a dead body out of a car, unrelated to anything to do with Jim and Spanky, underlining the failing structure of He Went That Way.

And from there, Jim spends several days trying to convince Bobby not to kill him and, perhaps return his wallet and pinky ring. Jim also has the tricky task of keeping Bobby from killing the people that they meet along their way, including a pair of teenage girls that Jim picks up for them by introducing them to Spanky the Chimp. The concept is horrifying but the sequence after the pick up is oddly muted, creepy in the wrong way, and unexpectedly dull over all, mirroring every other sequence in He Went That way.

I am going to have to dip into a spoiler here to talk about the strangest and most unwelcome part of He Went That Way. So, drop out now if you don't want to know about the final twist of He Went That Way. In an attempt to, perhaps, finally capture the absurdity of this story in which a man placates a serial killer into not killing him and his chimpanzee, the final scene of He Went That Way reveals the films narrator as.... Spanky the Chimp. The final moment of the movie, before a text on screen declaration that 'most of this actually happened', is Spanky tapping away on a typewriter telling us that we've seen is how he remembers the story.

Until this moment, the film has failed completely to be absurd or strange. The film is odd because it is treating this relationship between Jim and Bobby as a road trip and not a full-on kidnapping with potential death around every turn. The movie should be wildly absurd, amping the tension of whether or not Bobby might kill Jim at any moment, but the actors and the storytelling fall completely flat and render the whole thing as a strained melodrama. And then, big reveal, the Chimp was telling the story all along.

He Went That Way is a baffling movie. It's an oddly flat melodrama that should be a wildly absurd thriller. An animal trainer, his chimp, and a serial killer on a Route 66 road trip is inherently absurd but the filmmaking fails to capture that, somehow rendering this bizarre true story as a dimwitted melodrama. And then we learn that the chimpanzee has been narrating the whole movie and it feels like a failed prank on the audience.

Fans of Jacob Elordi will not find the wild;y attractive and charismatic young star of two of 2023's best movies, Priscilla and Saltburn. Instead, Elordi is rendered as a boring, brutish, bully who happens to be a serial killer. He Went That Way fails to capture the innate charisma that Elordi has shown working with Sophia Coppola and Emerald Fennell, each of whom deployed his good looks as part of the plot of their movies. He's still a handsome dude but that's pretty much it in terms of his appeal in He Went That Way.

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