THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Sony Pictures Classics
Grade: B+
Directed by: Tommy Lee Jones
Written by: Guillermo Arriaga
Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Barry Pepper, Julio Cesar Cedillo,
January Jones, Dwight Yoakam, Melissa Leo, Levon Helm, Mel
Rodriguez
Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 11/10/05 New York might be the world's most provincial city in that many
of our seven million residents believe that the United States
ends by the bank of the Hudson River and that a trip west
means taking the subway to Zabar's. Yet there is life beyond
the Hudson, lived by people who think New York is a nice place
to visit but a town that just doesn't have the breathtaking
scenery found in the American West. Tommy Lee Jones has
that view. The actual owner of a ranch in the Lone Star State,
Jones plays a leather-skinned cowpoke who owns a cattle rance
in West Texas around the area of San Antonio. Pete Perkins
(Tommy Lee Jones) is a humanist with not a trace of racism in
his bones. He easily befriends Mexicans just on the other side
of the border. When Melquiades Estrada (Julio Cesar Cedillo)
turns up looking for work as a vaquero, Pete hires him. They
become best friends. This is by way of introducing the most unusual buddy movie of
the year. One of Pete's buddies is the charming Estrada, the
other, Mike Norton (Barry Pepper). Norton will serve as a guy who becomes Pete's captive, treated worse than the convicts on a Georgia chain gang, and who upon being freed by his tormentor actually thanks his new friend for giving him the chance to redeem himself. Embracing the theme of guilt and redemption, "The Three
Burials of Melquiades Estrada" is filmed in the West Texas
region in a state that director Jones feels deep in his heart. The
movie reminds one of the works of Sam Peckinpah, who was
born into a ranchers' family and whose output dealt with
talented men hired for a job loaded with compromise and
corruption. With a stellar script by "21 Grams"'s scripter,
Mexican Guillermo Arriaga–who went away from the Cannes
Festival with a Best Screenplay award for "Three Burials"–Jones plunges us into the austerely beautiful scenery of the area. Arriaga's story is told in three chapters, each standing in for one
act of burial of the title character. Mike Norton leaves Cincinnati
with his beautiful but bubble-headed wife Lou Ann Norton
(January Jones) to take a job with the Texas-Mexico border
patrol. Norton kills Estreada, believing that rifle shots that ring
out and echo over the stark cliffs were meant for him. The
sheriff (Dwight Yoakam), who is no more of a humanist than
Norton, agrees to cover up the crime despite the Pete's
insistence that the law do its duty. With the Peckinpah brand of
vigilante justice, Pete kidnaps Mike, handcuffs him, and leads
him and their horses into the Mexican outback to honor a
promise Pete made to bury Melquiades in his home town of
Jimenez. You may wonder why a fellow whose action, technically in self-
defense, should be treated so poorly by Pete. Mike is punched,
handcuffed, and after an escape attempt lassoed with a rope
around his neck. Director Jones shows us the kind of sociopath
Mike Norton is. Norton shows no tenderness toward his lovely
wife (a scene of quick sex punctuates this), reads x-rated
magazines, and refuses to accompany Lou Ann into the stores
on the mall. At one point he treats Mexicans attempting to cross
the border illegally as though they were terrorists, punching a
woman in the nose and roughs up her fellow travelers. As in any road movie, there are interesting characters to meet,
the most exotic being an elderly blind man (Levon Helm) living
in shack with virtually no food who passes time by listening to
Spanish commercials and music on his radio. Another is a
herbalist who treats a snake bite that Norton received while
attempting to run away, the same woman whose nose was
punched when she attempted to cross the border. Tommy Lee Jones has a feel for the kinds of characters who dot
the landscape of his state, particularly the waitress in the area's
only diner, Rachel (Melissa Leo), who is married to the owner
but is not averse to taking younger men to a motel. A comic
scene finds Melquiades in another room of the motel with
Norton's wife. Not knowing how to act, he takes coaching from
Lou Ann, who gets him to dance and breaks down his
shyness. More morbid amusement comes from the decaying
body of Melquiades, whose head at one point is covered by
ants–which are destroyed when Pete pours antifreeze on the
poor man and sets the little critters on fire. In addition to winning the Cannes Festival's best screenplay,
"Three Burials" took the gold for Tommy Lee Jones, who was
named best actor. Lenser Chris Menges could be in for guild
awards for widescreen lensing that captures the rugged beauty
of the terrain. Not Yet Rated R. 120 minutes © 2005 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com Member: NY Film Critics Online | 
