Hammerman Ikon

Hammerman Ikon Film Guide

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
2005
****
Director: Tommy Lee Jones
Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Barry Pepper, Julio César Cedillo, Dwight Yoakam, January Jones, Melissa Leo

Tommy Lee Jones' impressive big screen directorial debut is based on a screenplay by Guillermo Arriaga who wrote Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel. Once again Arriaga manipulates chronology to tell us a tragic story of interrelated lives ruled by chance. Jones himself plays a ranch foreman who vowed to bury his friend's body in his home village in Mexico. He kidnaps the border patrolman (Pepper) who shot the friend and drags him along on this trip across the border. There are a few too many coincidences in the plotting, but this is still a moody and intelligent grown-up drama which plays out like a modern day Western. The border patrolman seems dreadfully one-note at first, but thanks to good writing and Pepper's sound performance he develops into a three-dimensional character, and his redemption seems believable and touching.