Three Burials of Melquides Estrada - 2005 This is a movie about loyalty and honor. About honoring a single life and avenging a single death.
It stars Tommy Lee Jones as the grizzled owner of a small time cattle operation, Pete Perkins. He hires an illegal Mexican immigrant as a hand and a deeper friendship develops. Barry Pepper is the hot head border patrol agent that has no problem with socking a Mexican woman in the face if she crosses him (and the border).
Stir this mix up and you have an emotional western (?) in the mold of a John Huston. Melquides Estrada is the Mexican cattle hand and we get to know him primarily through flashback and story telling. We do get to know him well though, which is skillful on the director's part, primarily because he is, well... dead for most of the movie. [I don't think I'm giving away any plot spoilers here. Look at the title of the movie]. Perkins realizes the ineffective sheriff [played by Diwight Yokum] isn't going to get to the bottom of the murder and decides to take matters into his own hands.
What we get is a journey of redemption bought with gruesome physical labor. Both men learn respect that they didn't have at the beginning of the story. Pepper masterfully portrays the contrition that the part demands and is worth the price of admission right there.
The film is the directorial debut for Jones as well. I'm hungry for more.
This movie made my Top 100 Movie List. You can research the movie at Amazon here.
No comments:
Post a Comment