He Went That Way (2024)

Directed by Jeff Darling
Written by Evan M. Wiener

Honestly, the backbone of filmmaking are projects like He Went That Way, a low budget, quietly distributed feature that provides an opportunity for budding and promising actors and filmmakers to just try stuff. An importantly they provide work for so many people who otherwise wouldn’t get the opportunity to make a movie. Not everyone in the industry can be an A-Lister, or be in a Marvel movie, etc. and the joy of movies for me is sometimes finding an unseen gem, uncovering a spitfire performance and shining a light on it. However, He Went That Way doesn’t quite seem to hit that mark. Jacob Elordi is coming off a huge year in which he saw prominent roles in Saltburn and Priscilla, playing Elvis Presley in the latter, not to mention his work on the ever popular TV show Euphoria. He is still a rising star, and projects like this will help propel him further. However, the star opposite Elordi is Zachary Quinto. Where has he been!? He has basically vanished from Hollywood movies since the Star Trek series, in which I thought he was a very good Spock. So while one star is rising, it seems the other is attempting a resurrection. Additionally, the director, Jeff Darling, while not notching any notable films under his belt seems a veteran of the scene as well, albeit one without a breakout on his CV. It just seems like a potential star vehicle for Elordi and a job-for-hire for others involved, which zaps it of much of its small, hidden gem potential.

Jim (Zachary Quinto) is a Hollywood animal trainer making a cross country trek from Los Angeles to Chicago for a private booking with his famed animal performer Spanky, an energetic and charismatic chimpanzee, in tow. Along the way, somewhere in Death Valley along Route 66 in the late 60s, he encounters Bobby (Jacob Elordi), a loner hitchhiker looking to catch a ride out of the desolate heat of Death Valley, and he happens to be going the same way as Jim. One to never pick up hitchhikers, Jim makes an exception, an one which he almost immediately regrets, as stepping into his car is not just a young innocent drifter, Bobby is a psychotic killer with a little Derringer, finger on the trigger, ready to snap at anybody who upsets him. Their “true story” three day journey becomes the adventure neither of them knew they needed.

In true low budget fashion, this film is clearly a simple production, with limited cast and crew, limited location shooting, and likely a very short schedule. That’s not a knock on the film, as many such productions have netted polished, endlessly fascinating films. This just isn’t one of them. First of all, the pairing of Quinto and Elordi seems odd at best. Quinto seems seriously out of his depth here and unable to imbue Jim with any true feeling or connectivity. Certainly the slight script is partially to blame, but I never felt enough for him to care one way or another whether he made it out with Bobby or not, which is a serious crux of the film. Across from Quinto, Elodi delivers exactly the type of performance I would expect in a film like this, but that’s not to say it was great either. Instead, it was great in spurts, offering Elordi an opportunity to practice his craft, go big an boisterous in some moments, and small, reflective and creepy in others. In the end it nets a fairly uneven performance overall, but it’s the type of turn which shows you this actor has it. He has the looks, the charisma, the chops if he’s able to hone his craft a little bit and is given a better screenplay to work with in bigger budget productions.

As for the filmmaking, Jeff Darling, may he rest in peace, had a few spots as a cinematographer in the late 80s, early 90s, but He Went That Way is amazingly his feature debut as a director, released posthumously. He, along with cinematographer Sean Bagley, photographs the endlessly beautiful Southwest and Jacob Elordi very well, but otherwise the pacing, the staging, a lot of other elements just leave a lot to be desired cinematically. For a short film, just 95 minutes, the film really drags, mostly due to the lack of plotting. Only two characters, driving through the open desert, with very episodic encounters with Jim’s brother-in-law priest (Patrick J. Adams) (in the middle of the desert, who are his parishioners?), a bizarre and zany motel clerk (Troy Evans), a pair of innocent but very much on-to-them teenagers, and a animal rights activist fanatic.

In the end, the movie did not make much of an impact on me. I think what was most unfulfilling was the lack of swing. I wanted this movie to take some swings with the story of a killer hitchhiker on a cross country trip with a chimpanzee and his handler. There was no real sense of taking advantage of the era of the late 60s. There was no real sense of taking advantage of a cold-blooded killer. The few kill scenes were relatively tame and not flashy, and I never really got inside the head of Bobby to either understand, sympathize or even hate him as a character. It wasn’t for the lack of an interesting performance from Jacob Elordi, and that is the clearest takeaway from an otherwise underwhelming movie. I will definitely be following his next moves in what is a promising young career. Otherwise, like Bobby treats many of his victims, He Went That Way is pretty discardable.