The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Ay, carramba! A diablo of a marketing challenge: a bilingual movie, with an impossible-to-remember title, a story of white trash, Mexican wetbacks (that's the film's language), cruel Border Patrol "cowboys," and Tommy Lee Jones as the director and the uniquely memorable lead character... and a film that's one of the year's best.

"The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" opens with a somewhat confusing sequence of flashbacks, and for the first half hour, you wish you were watching something more "orderly," but you'll be hooked anyway. For the next hour and a half, however, there is a crescendo of images and situations hitting the viewer over the head, amazing and moving.

Taking the corpse of a friend - and his very much alive killer - back to Mexico for a "proper burial" and to mete out justice, Jones' voyage is a quirky, epic adventure, based on the brilliant writing of Guillermo Arriaga (of "21 Grams"), and filmed to perfection by Chris Menges (of "The Killing Fields" and "The Mission").

Besides Jones (who won the 2005 Cannes Festival best actor award for this), "3 Burials" features fabulous performances by Barry Pepper ("25 Hours"), Julio Cedillo, and a large group of remarkable supporting actors on both sides of the border.

Jones says something in the production notes that could sound arrogant or affected... except that it's true: "Some visual influences have been the kabuki theater, the art of Donald Judd and Dan Flavin, and the films of Akira Kurasawa, Sam Peckinpah, and Jean-Luc Godard." Amen.

This above average film concerns Pete Perkins , a foreman (Tommy Lee Jones) from a Texas town , nearly the Mexican border . There also lives a violent patrolman called Mike (Barry Pepper) , along with his embittered wife (J. Jones) . When his pal , Melquiades (Cedillo) , is murdered , he is rapidly buried . But Perkins pulls off the promise his best friend bringing him at his natal village , called Jimenez . Then , he decides the kidnapping of the arrogant policeman . After the second burial into a public graveyard , he claims the body that is tied to a mule and along with the patrolman start a dangerous journey to Mexico pursued by the patrol chief (Dwight Yokoam) .Nobody is beyond redemption. For justice. For loyalty. For friendship.

This enjoyable film is a touching and violent drama with elevated cinematographic values . The protagonist results to be a ¨Quixote¨ who obstinately undertakes a perilous journey whose objective looks to fulfill the promise by whatever means . The movie realizes an awesome actors ' reunion , showing the different characters and explores their apprehension , ambitions , fears and circumstances . Intelligent and thoughtful screenplay by Guillermo Arriaga (21 grams , dog loves) . The screenplay was written in Spanish by Guillermo Arriaga but was translated in to English by Tommy Lee Jones . Director/Actor Jones gave each cast member a copy of Albert Camus' "The Stranger" to read so that they would understand alienation , a big theme in both the novel and the film . Sensitive and evocative musical score by Marco Beltrani (Red eye) . The film is a nice co-production , being produced , among others , by the great producer and director French Luc Besson . Special mention for glimmer and fascinating cinematography by Chris Menges (Pledge , Michael Collins) and occasionally director (World apart , Criss cross) , he splendidly reflects impressive outdoors from Texas border and Mexico . Tommy Lee Jones won a deserved prize in Cannes , being his theatrical directing debut , his only other directing credit was the TV movie Good old boys (1995) . Tommy Lee Jones's acting and direction is magnificent . Much of the movie was shot on Tommy Lee Jones's own ranch . Remaining cast is frankly excellent with terrific performances (Pepper , Jones , Melissa Leo) . Rating : Better than average . Well worth watching , it's a must see for Tommy Lee Jones enthusiasts.

As a Mexican American myself and with Spanish being my first language , I hate when they portray Mexicans or any Hispanics for that matter , with phony accents that I just don't buy. Most of the times I'm irritated to the point I can't enjoy the movie. IN THIS INSTANCE HOWEVER , I was highly impressed with the whole cast, especially Tommy lee Jones's Spanish . INCREDIBLE!! I always saw him as a respectable actor , but he truly won me over with his performance in this movie . Also the plot twists thru out the whole movie are intriguing . This is a movie well worth watching !

At times 21 Grams others Don Quixote. A meaningless killing, leads to three burials and a quest with a corpse through Mexico, Arriaga(the screenwriter here, formerly of Babel, Ammores Perros, 21 Grams) as always weaves in themes both global and personal, political and poetic, with a skill and restraint not often seen. Ostensibally a modern western, this film shares with those others an ostensibly simple event told through a variety of chronologies and characters, great stuff. As with those other films it does tend to have a slow pace, but it does so give the viewer a grander scenic sense of the landscape Arriaga and Tommy Lee Jones, who direction should not be overlooked, unfold for us, a literate, mindful, grossly underrated modern western which manages to say many powerful things about the world today and human life in general.

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is for me the film that saved 2005. Written by Guillermo Arriaga, also writer of "Amores Perros" and "21 grams" and the first movie of Tommy Lee Jones as a director (but also lead actor), "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" tells the story of Ranch hand Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones) who wants to fulfill the promise he made to his recently deceased Mexican friend by burying him in his hometown in Mexico. The power of this modern western and initiatic journey resides in the complexity of the characters, their depth and their controversial behavior. None of the protagonists are one dimensional; none of them are right or wrong but all of them do right and wrong things. They are not always rational, and most of the time they feel lost. In one word they all appear profoundly human. Build over a chase dynamic fueled with contrasts and paradoxes, the film opposes Wild West landscape and Modern carton built houses, 4WD tracking hunt and horse back journey, fake TV soaps and true friendship but maybe most of all Freedom and Prison. Indeed most if not all characters are trapped in their apathetic lives from which they can't or don't want to escape forcing us to ask ourselves how close is our lives to the spectacle projected in front of our eyes. Melquiades Estrada embodies this possibility of Escape and now that he has been buried 3 times he transcends this Freedom making redemption possible not only through death but also through rebirth, suggesting that nobody is beyond it.