The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada Review
by [email protected] (dnb AT dca DOT net)February 28th, 2006
THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2006 David N. Butterworth
*** (out of ****)
From his screen acting debut at the ripe old age of 24 in the Kleenex classic "Love Story" to his one and (to date) only Academy Award(r)-winning performance in 1993's "The Fugitive," Tommy Lee Jones has enjoyed a checkered career that has spanned some 60-odd films. Now, with the intriguingly titled "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada," Jones finally gets to try his hand behind the camera, as director.
That decision has been a long time coming but it's one that proves well worth the wait.
For his directorial debut, Jones has gone with an offbeat, unorthodox saga set in and around that troubled terrain between Texas and Mexico. Jones plays a rancher, Pete Perkins, in a performance for which the term "grizzled" might easily have been coined. Pete, wily, surly, and just a little bit distracted, spends his time drinking and whoring and harassing the local law enforcement officials. Especially when, it transpires, his dear friend, ranch hand and illegal alien Mel Estrada, is found fatally shot one day.
Through flashbacks (although we don't initially recognize them as such) we come to learn how Pete and Mel once struck a deal, that should Melquiades die on Texan soil then his compadre would return him to his hometown of Jimenez, Mexico to be buried.
A promise is a promise is a promise, even if it requires the kinds of lengths to which Pete must go to fulfill his end of the bargain. Upon learning that Melquiades was gunned down by a rookie border patrolman (Barry Pepper in an intense performance), Pete hijacks Mel's killer, forces him to exhume the body (the second time of two), and subjects him to a crazed journey back to Mexico as penance for his sins.
"Three Burials'" is a complex film about loss, friendship, and retribution. It's uniformly well acted, by Jones and Pepper especially, but also by Melissa Leo ("Hide and Seek") as the town's frisky restaurateur, "Maxim" cover girl January Jones (no relation) as Lou Ann Norton, the frustrated Cincinnati wife of Pepper's border crossing guard, and Dwight Yoakam as a mean-spirited police officer with an inexplicable dislike for Pete.
Guillermo Arriaga's script--he wrote the fine "21 Grams" and "Amores Perros"--is both quirky and quixotic, boasting flavorful theatrics alongside some pretty brutal examinations (horses, coyotes, rattlers, and Chicanos, for example, all bite the plentiful dust). Pete dresses the deceased Mel up in his cowboy duds, then dresses him down in curing salt. Later still he feeds him anti-freeze through a tube to prevent the ants from dining on him. Throughout the journey, Melquiades deteriorates rapidly, smelling (as a dead man does) to high heaven, but Pete props him up and converses with him as though he were as animate and fresh as a Gerber daisy blowing in the Tijuana breeze.
Tommy Lee, who's afforded the opportunity to flash his fluent Spanish, never once seems preachy or out of sorts with the disarming subject matter. Instead, he permits the story to unfold unhurriedly, allowing moments of humor and unabashed sadness to permeate through. It's an impressive accomplishment from the man we last saw playing a Texas Ranger assigned to protect a household of cheerleaders.
The mighty, it would seem, have risen.
--
David N. Butterworth
[email protected]
Got beef? Visit "La Movie Boeuf"
online at http://members.dca.net/dnb
More on 'The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada'...
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
