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One of the most acclaimed films of 2005,
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada marks the assured and worldly-wise directorial debut of veteran actor Tommy Lee Jones. While the majority of critics and Oscar®-voters heaped praise upon the "gay cowboy" breakthrough of
Brokeback Mountain, Jones delivered this equally resonant, elegiac study of male friendship in a Western setting, crafting a flawless parable of borderline existence on the border of Texas and Mexico. It is there, amidst some of the most beautifully bleak landscapes in recent American film, that Jones and screenwriter Guillermo Arriga (
Amores Perros,
21 Grams) set their existential quest for meaning, focusing on the honor-bound commitment of Texas ranch foreman Pete (played by Jones with a heavy heart and deep moral conviction) to return the body of illegal Mexican immigrant ranch-hand Melquiades Estrada (played in flashback scenes by Julio Cedillo) to his preferred resting place in the Mexican wilderness. Estrada had been accidentally shot by Mike (Barry Pepper), a newly-arrived U.S. border patrolman, and Pete forces Mike to participate in his cross-country ritual of duty--a voyage of revenge and redemption that will change both men forever, and bring some semblance of meaning to the senseless death of Pete's good friend. In triumphant collaboration with cinematographer Chris Menges, Jones carefully instills his superior cast (including Dwight Yoakam, January Jones, and Melissa Leo) with the slow, desperate rhythms of lives on the border (of Texas and Mexico, and life and death), prompting many critics to draw praiseworthy comparisons to Sam Peckinpah's thematically similar 1974 drama
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and the exquisite absurdities of Luis Bunuel. Whatever your own reaction might be, Three Burials is not a film to view or respond to lightly; there's humor and more than a bit of madness to this great, inquisitive film, but Jones is looking deeply into the soul of humankind, and he dares you to draw your own conclusions about the journey Pete and Mike have taken.
--Jeff Shannon Product Description
Oscar® winner Tommy Lee Jones (Best Supporting Actor, The Fugitive, 1993) directs and stars in this poetic and striking modern-day Western. Peter Perkins (Jones) is a veteran cowboy who embodies the values of the old west, living in a small Texas town bordering the U.S. and Mexico. He hires Melquiades Estrada as a ranch hand and quickly befriends the man. But when Estrada is gunned down under mysterious circumstances, Perkins takes justice into his own hands and kidnaps a trigger-happy border patrolman (Barry Pepper - Saving Private Ryan), forcing Perkins to unearth Estrada's body and accompany Perkins on horseback on the long and treacherous journey through the frontier mountains and back roads of Mexico to bring his friend's body home.
Review
For his debut feature, Tommy Lee Jones follows in the footsteps of other fine actors who paid attention when they were directed Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford and Robert Duvall spring to mind. That is to say, he comes on the scene a confident, honed storyteller. This with the assistance of scripter Guillermo Arriaga enables a film like The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. In what could be the same border town John Sayles presents in Lone Star, Jones mines a subject thats both timely to the nation, and timeless to Texans: the unexpected byproducts of illegal immigration. But the director steers clear of a heavy-handed message movie, fixating on a single Mexican, a ranch hand named Melquiades Estrada (Julio Cedillo), who is accidentally shot by an overzealous border patrol agent (Barry Pepper). As Pete Perkins, Jones the performer is no human rights crusader; he just cares about this particular man. In keeping a promise to his compadre even when it involves carrying his decaying corpse across the desert on horseback Jones radiates an unyielding determination, kidnapping Peppers Mike Norton and teaching him a lesson with an almost disembodied sense of calm. But the film leaves all interpretation of the characters growth and change up to the audience, never cheating them through a big speech or a moment of dramatic clarity. Every detail feels real, and the cinematography (by veteran Chris Menges and neophyte Hector Ortega) makes the barren Mexican countryside as formidable as any wilderness on film a dying frontier for men of justice. Arriagas script also effectively carries out the parallel subplot of several stolid women resigned to disappointment back in town. While its deliberate pace may not move fast enough for some viewers, those who fall in stride with Estrada will find plenty of buried treasures. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
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