Jacob Elordi had quite the breakout year in 2023. First came his much talked about performance as Elvis Presley in Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla”. Then came his role in Emerald Fennell’s try-hard disappointment “Saltburn”. Regardless of your thoughts on the movies, the 26-year-old Aussie took a major step up from his “Kissing Booth” features on Netflix and has positioned himself as one of the most interesting young talents in the business.

Elordi kicks of 2024 with yet another role that tests his range. He plays a serial killer in first-time director Jeffrey Darling’s “He Went That Way”, a true-crime thriller based on Conrad Hilberry’s 1987 nonfiction book “Luke Karamazov”. The film is built upon an inherently interesting premise and it certainly emphasizes Elordi’s magnetism. But it’s hindered by an inconsistent tone and a lack of emotional resonance which minimizes our connection to the characters and their stories despite being entertained by them.

Darling (who sadly died in a surfing accident in 2022) begins his movie with the tag “This really (mostly) happened.” Set along the infamous Route 66, the story takes place during the Summer of 1964. It’s a period marked by a shift in American culture – something eluded to in an early montage but never really followed up on. From there we’re introduced to Bobby (Elordi) a tall, handsome, and unhinged roamer dumping a dead body in Death Valley, California.

A scene or two later we meet a fidgety Pepto-guzzling animal trainer named Jim (Zachary Quinto) as he’s traveling Route 66 with some rather unusual cargo. Jim is transporting his pet chimpanzee named Spanky to Chicago for a “private engagement”. We learn Spanky was once a fairly big celebrity, known by many and frequently making appearances on television. But his fame has fizzled leaving Jim to take their act on the road.

While stopped at a gas station Jim sees Bobby hitchhiking and decides to offer him a ride. Bobby is on his way to Michigan where he has a girlfriend named Bonnie (or so he says). But it doesn’t take long before Bobby starts showing his poorly suppressed violent side. He brandishes his beloved Derringer and intimidates the considerably more unassertive Jim who suddenly finds himself on a road-trip across the Southwest with a young sociopath.

It’s easy to assume you know where the story is going. But Darling and writer Evan M. Wiener attempt to throw us a few curveballs. Most come in the strange relationship that forms between Jim and Bobby. The two begin warming up to each other in their own weird (and kinda twisted) ways. As they do, we’re fed tidbits of information about each of them although never enough to get a good grasp of who they are. The feelings and motivations that drive them are even more opaque, making it hard to have anything other than a surface-level connection to them.

Despite there being a flimsiness to their characters, the performances from Elordi and Quinto keep our attention and help elevate the material. But they can’t quite compensate for the lack of depth nor can they do much to steady the script’s uneven tone. There is some good tension from the grittier thriller side of the story and there are some amusing bits from the swings it takes at dark comedy. But the movie has the hard time balancing the two, leaving us often wondering what kind of movie Darling is going for. “He Went That Way” hits select theaters on January 5th.

VERDICT – 2.5 STARS