Three Burials (2005)

I liked this movie a lot, but after reading the critics and many of the comments herein, I can't believe I'm the only one with some nits to pick.

Strengths –

1. CINEMATOGRAPHY. If you've ever visited the Southwest, you know that it's difficult to represent accurately on film. Kudos. TTBOME is accurate to the countryside depicted and panoramically beautiful.

2. ACTING. Although Barry Pepper will always be Roger Maris to me, he is easy to hate here and then even easier to be ambivalent about later. Pepper makes a great hostage. Melissa Leo nails the role of Rachel. Nearly everyone else is superb.

3. NUANCE. Why make everything in black and white? The world is beautiful with shades of meaning and so is TTBOME.

4. THOUGHT PROVOCATION. This isn't a kids'movie, but not for the reasons the rating states. My wife called it a "thinking an's 'Weekend At Bernie's'". You do have to think about a lot of things:

a. Roles. Do we like who we are? Do we like what we do? Â…where we live? Â…what others think of us?

b. Racism. Is everyone you meet of Mexican origin undocumented? How about the reverse? Are the bad guys now always the gringos?

c. Economics. If it is so beautiful, friendly, peaceful, musical, and well-fed, would so many south of the border risk all they have to come north of the border and "pick strawberries"? On the other hand, if I lived in Van Horn, Texas, I'd be looking to escape to anywhere else. Seriously.

d. Endurance. Could you survive this trek? I wouldn't make it 100 yards without shoes.

There are other strengths. Refer to the other reviews.

Weaknesses –

1. CHARACTER BUILDING. We are given very little reason to believe that Pete would do this for anyone. We are asked to believe that he is deep, e.g., thousand-yard gazes, fierce loyalty, rugged determination; but also shallow, e.g., dalliance with a married woman, gullibility, disrespect for the law. We may like nuance in a movie, but who is the protagonist? Pete is a weak one, considering the milieu he came out of. If he were a match for the country, we'd be cheering for him like Shane.

2. CHRONOLOGY. Stupid! Unnecessary! Contrived! Distracting! Egotistical! Stupid. A poor substitute for character good building.

3. LOGIC.

a. Lou Ann's relationship with Mike adds nothing to the story. He is central and we already have enough to dislike him.

b. Rachel's loyalty to Bob strains at reason. He loyalty to anything is questionable.

c. Gomez' willingness to cut a quick deal with Belmont has no history to back it up.

d. Why is Rachel able to hear every syllable through glass?

e. Lack of conversation between Mike and Pete. If you thought coming clean would buy you your life or even some more time, you'd talk your head off.

f. Cincinnati? That hotbed of INS recruitment?

4. ACTING. Dwight Yoakam will not be offered leading man roles. He's already found his shtick and this isn't it. Tommy Lee's performance as Pete would benefit from a more seasoned director. Joel Coen comes to mind.

5. LENGTH. This could have been over sooner. You especially know that when there are long silences in the commentary version with three good commentators.

6. BIZARRE COINCIDENCE. Am I the only one who thinks Cedillo looks like Johnny Damon? Couldn't shake it.

7. ROTTING CORPSE. OK, we get it. He&

Fmovies: The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Directed by Tommy Lee Jones (2005)

I have always liked Tommy Lee Jones as an actor. He has made some really great performances in the movies JFK, Heaven & Earth, and The Fugitive. And otherwise he has always been good, although he got some typecast in some stereotype roles. In 1995 he debuted as a director on TV, with the movie The Good Old Boys, which I sadly haven't seen. Now, he has joined some of his famous and acknowledged colleges like Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, Denzel Washington, and made the step from actor, to actor & director in his own very first motion picture - The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.

In this movie, Tommy plays the lead as Pete Perkins, who under some mysterious circumstances, finds out that his best friend has got killed. As a consequence of this, he reacts strong and dramatically, wanting to fulfil his old promise to his, now gone, friend.

The script is written by Guillermo Arriaga, and he mixes the characters and the beautiful landscape into an original story, dealing with many subjects. As said before, the movie is beautifully filmed and good edited. Aside from the director, the shooting star – Barry Pepper – delivers another very good and solid performance! He is a very good actor, which I hope to see a lot from in the future…

All in all a solid, and good piece of movie craft from Tommy Lee Jones, which I know respect more than ever!

8/10

Tommy Lee Jones' film about a rancher (Jones) who keeps his promise to his friend and co-worker Melquiades Estrada who wanted to be buried in his homeland in Mexico. The film is slow at times, but gets it point across well, and I believe those instances in the film where not much is going on actually help it in order to put things in perspective for us viewers. The cinematography is artistically beautiful, while the score, screenplay from Guillermo Arriaga (who also appears in the film) and the performancer are first-rate. Amazing how films like this go virtually overlooked in the press and eyes of mainstream American cinema-goers. This film deserves to get all the nomination and award hype that less worthy stuff like Brokeback mountain or even Walk the line have received. This is a true masterpiece from Tommy Lee Jones, who proves hes just as credible in directing as in acting. 10/10

Three Burials fmovies. As if we were being thrown smack in the middle of a Cormac McCarthy novel, >>Three Burials<< powerfully serves up the borderlands milieu through its bipolar texture and tone: both graphic and dreamy, tragic and comical. That fusion is accented by memorable characters and age-old themes: immigration and the Rio Grande; Spanish and English and Spanglish; violence and personal relationships; coyotes and border patrol; a tired waitress with a Chekhovian longing and an inept sheriff with nervous problems; a young, blonde wife terribly out of place, and an aging, rugged cowboy firmly in place (>>Ride the High Country<<, anyone?). Finally, the film centers on a classically picaresque story of personality development through trials and tribulations: Pete (Tommy Lee Jones), on a flashback-laden quest for his own way of justice, dragging along the rapidly disintegrating corpse of his friend, brings about the personal journey of a trigger-happy, macho-racist border patrol officer (played by Barry Pepper) from guilt to redemption... Wonderfully borderlands, comparable to >>Lone Star<<. Watch it.

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.

This movie not only has some of the best acting I've seen in a while; but also it features a full cast of interesting characters - from the protagonists to random encounters, each one seems... to exist somewhere beyond the screen. Top notch photography, emotionally wrenching, dealing with complex issues of today's society and depicting everything unashamedly, this movie is simply awesome. Every little detail seems to have been worked at, pondered over and hammered out until it was just perfect. Every single character is memorable. Every single shot is beautiful. I could simply find no flaws with it.

While some may find the subject of the movie distasteful, I found the manner in which it is approached to be just perfect. There are of course clichés - these are inevitable. But the attention to detail brings this movie to such heights of perfection that you cannot help but twist your face into a satisfying grin while the movie is on, and for much time afterwards.