Review of The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) by Bill S — 13 May 2015
An offbeat and odd morality tale that burns in your memory, Tommy Lee Jones' film nonetheless bleeds with all of the bullets and brawn masculinity exhibited in such Sam Peckinpah western classics as The Wild Bunch and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Two years before No Country for Old Men (which Jones starred in) gave filmgoers an instant 21st century classic, one of that film's stars nailed the same serio-comic tone and stripped bare violence in a similar tale of the American West. Topical on the subjects of geopolitics and the Mexican quotient of Mexican-American without being a tutorial, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada excellently pits the very U.S. of A genre of western in a very Latin American context.
In this R-rated modern western, Ranch hand Pete Perkins (Jones) looks to fulfill the promise to his recently deceased best friend by burying him in his hometown in Mexico with the help of the careless man who shot him (Pepper).
From premise to fulfilling the protagonists promise, Tommy Lee Jones delivers an A-Level directorial debut. You can hear the pitch black humor and laid-bare honesty of Cormac McCarthy in dialogue that's exchanged like bullets in a shootout...but it's screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga and not the author of No Country for Old Men, All the Pretty Horses, and Blood Meridian, who's dreamt up this world that's at times stark and raving mad but never completely stark raving mad. Jones' Pete is a man of scruples, as is the actor's direction. He tames Arriagas rugged dusty landscape and nails a role that's just as much a scrupulous oddball.
Bottom line: All the Pretty Horsesense.
This review of The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) was written by Bill S on 13 May 2015.
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada has generally received very positive reviews.
Was this review helpful?
