Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)

"Beautiful, Authentic and brutally observant of human nature.  Peter Debruge/Permiere magizne

Editor's Note Tommy Lee Jones takes his second turn in the director's chair with THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA, the follow-up to his 1995 western THE GOOD OLD BOYS. The action takes place on the border between West Texas and Northern Chihuahua in Mexico, which is a hot spot for illegal crossings. But Jones's movie ingeniously flips this dangerous yet all-too-common practice on its head, with a tale of a man hell-bent on crossing the border in the opposite direction. The journey to Mexico begins when Pete Perkins (Jones) uncovers the identity of a Border Patrolman, Mike Norton (Barry Pepper), who has shot and killed his best friend, Melquiades Estrada (Julio Cedillo). Kidnapping Norton and forcing him to dig up Estrada's body, Perkins straps the corpse to a horse, and informs Norton that he will be traveling with them to Mexico. Once there, they will bury Estrada according to instructions he gave Perkins prior to his death. Jones paints Norton as a mean-spirited individual; caught up in a loveless relationship with his wife, Lou Ann (January Jones), Norton's day job frequently involves him him either exploding in a violent rage or idly masturbating over a well-thumbed copy of Hustler. The two men don't exactly bond on their journey, the wedge that's been forced between them being far too great for them to reconcile their differences. But Jones coerces a riveting tale from Guillermo Arriaga script, with a choppy chronology reminiscent of Arriaga's own 21 GRAMS. Comparisons to Sam Peckinpah's masterfully bleak 1974 movie BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA are inevitable, although Jones's film has a tender edge that Peckinpah's nihilistic epic was never quite capable of reaching. A film that suggests Jones has a bright future ahead of him as a director, THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA is one of the most absorbing pieces of cinema to emerge in 2005.

	Barry Pepper
	Dwight Yoakam
	Tommy Lee  Jones
	Vanessa Bauche
	Chris Menges - Cinematographer
	Guillermo Arriaga Jordan - Writer
	Luc  Besson - Executive Producer
	Marco Beltrami - Original Music By
	Michael Fitzgerald - Producer
	Roberto Silvi - Editor
	Tommy Lee Jones - Director

Rolling Stone
3.5 stars out of 5 -- "Jones shakes you in a way you do not see coming. His movie is a powder keg." 12/15/2005 p.162

New York Times
"[The film] strikes both fresh and familiar chords, most of them pleasingly dissonant. Directed with a steady hand and an eye for eccentric detail..." 12/14/2005 p.E1

Entertainment Weekly
"THREE BURIALS has some savvy scenes of small-town gossip and adultery..." 02/01/2006 p.62

Los Angeles Times
"Tommy Lee Jones has been a strong and witty presence in the movies, and in directing himself he has reached the pinnacle of his career with THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA." 12/14/2005 p.E9

Uncut
4 stars out of 5 -- "[E]vocative of Peckinpah's death-drenched Mexican masterworks THE WILD BUNCH and BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA." 04/01/2006 p.133

Sight and Sound
"Beautifully shot by Chris Menges and expertly acted by Barry Pepper...Dwight Yoakam...and, most compelling of all, Jones, this is a film that, for all its echoes of other cross-border excursions, is genuinely original." 04/01/2006 p.76

Total Film
5 stars out of 5 -- "The magic of THREE BURIALS lies in Jones' understated, hugely affecting performance." 08/01/2006 p.95

Ultimate DVD
4 stars out of 5 -- "[A] tough, touching and darkly comic directorial effort." 09/01/2006 p.214