HE WENT THAT WAY - Mark Reviews Movies

He Went That Way, Vertical

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Review by Mark Dujsik | January 4, 2024

Here's a weird story about a serial killer, the man he more or less abducts, and a famous chimpanzee. Technically, this is a true story, too, although screenwriter Evan M. Wiener's narrative for He Went That Way has been filtered through multiple sources.

First, there is the real story of that serial killer, who claimed to have five victims across the country and was convicted of the murder of one of them. Then, there's the Conrad Hilberry book, which is credited as the script's main foundation, about the killer and his separately murderous brother, who receives a passing reference in this story.

Finally, we have the first-hand account of someone who survived the killer. That real person shows up during the closing credits as a kind of proof that, no matter how strange this story might seem, it basically happened as Wiener and director Jeffrey Darling have presented it.

Oh, there is one more perspective offered by this movie, just to add to the confusion, although even the filmmakers don't take it seriously. It's basically a punch line to a story that, apparently, was a joke in some way that no one within the movie bothers to communicate.

Is it any wonder, then, that this movie doesn't seem to know what it wants to say? It's theoretically about a couple of lonely, aimless people—and one lonesome ape—on Route 66, that long stretch of romantic road still crossing most of the country in the story's 1964 setting.

Jim (Zachary Quinto) is an animal trainer whose success with a chimp named Spanky is quickly fading. Bobby (Jacob Elordi) is a hitchhiker on that iconic route—recently discharged from the military, trying to get home to Michigan to see a girl he loves, only packing a pistol for defense and when he needs to rob somebody to get from one place to the next.

Such are the stories Bobby tells Jim, and whether or not any of them—or any piece of them—is true is irrelevant here. Some flashbacks and an initial flash-forward show us the only thing we really need to know about this young man: He kills people. He has killed a few before meeting Jim and will murder again after his time with the animal trainer is finished. Jim doesn't know this, but because we do, that makes this story a thriller.

In a way, the material basically functions at that level, because Jim is so naïve, decent, and caught up in his own troubles that he doesn't suspect the man he has picked up outside a gas station could be a bad person. Even after Bobby robs him at gunpoint at their first stop on the long road trip to Chicago, Jim assumes this guy can't be all that bad.

Quinto makes us believe all of this, as unlikely as it might seem, because here is a man who wants people to be as kindhearted and sincere as he imagines himself to be. Pushed to a limit, anyone can behave badly, as Jim does a couple times here with his career and marriage on the line, so he also has to believe that people are fundamentally better than their worst moments.

All of this helps to explain how Jim and Bobby meet and spend multiple days together on the road. With that premise in place, though, the filmmakers never determine why this story needs to be told in this way, from this perspective, and with such little interest in Bobby.

It's quickly becoming clear that Elordi is set for stardom, and his performance here, which has to be equal parts disarmingly charming and intrinsically dangerous, serves as further evidence of that seemingly inevitable destiny. He's quite good in this role, which turns out to be an unfortunately superficial one. We learn little about Bobby, except that he has killed multiple people and was abused by his father, and it's odd that the filmmakers cheat with the story's perspective in order to establish that former fact, while refusing to do so to provide any other details about the character.

If this were simply a straightforward thriller about Jim's ignorance of the danger he's in, that might be fine, but Wiener and Darling have more significant ideas in mind. Mainly, they're putting Jim's belief in the basic goodness of people to the test, as the man tries to reason with, negotiate with, and serve as a kind of mentor to Bobby, whom he only sees as a trouble young man with a mercurial—and, yes, sometimes violent—personality.

We know too much that Jim doesn't know about Bobby to agree with the former's opinion, but we know far too little about Bobby for the story's final turns, which attempt to suggest that the young man could have been different or still could be saved, to be convincing. A couple scenes with the chimp (noticeably played by an actor in an ape suit) don't make a compelling case.

Again, that's assuming this is the case He Went That Way is trying to make in the first place. The only firm grasp the filmmakers have on this material is that it is a weird story, which only gets it so far.

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