The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
2006 Directed by Tommy Lee Jones
Synopsis
In Texas nearby the border of Mexico, border patrolman Mike Norton mistakenly kills the Mexican cowboy Melquiades Estrada and buries him in the desert. When Melquiades's body is found one week later, his best friend, the ranch foreman Pete Perkins, claims the body to fulfill his promise to bury Melquiades in his hometown Jimenez and presses the local sheriff Belmont to find the killer.
Cast
Popular reviews
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Tommy Lee Jones’ first, and so far only venture into the director’s chair is the work of filmmaking maturity. Perfect pacing and beautiful location shooting, capturing Texas in all its sundrenched glory and despair, Three Burials is a modern western, a story of loneliness, revenge, redemption, and friendship. After Estrada (Julio Cedillo) is accidently shot dead by a Border Controlman, his friend, a modern cowboy played by Lee Jones captures his killer and forces him on a bizarre trek by foot and by horse with the corpse to Mexico to give his friend the burial he wanted. Proving he is also a fine director of actors, Jones brings out marvellous performances from all involved; one can only hope he gets the directors bug soon again
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For a film this stunningly beautiful, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada can at times feel oddly undercooked. Well, I say odd. When paring the script down to a bare minimum and steering well clear of any turns into genre territory probably is very conscious move on the part of writer Guillermo Arriaga and director Tommy Lee Jones. The filmmakers seem content merely to evoke westerns and revenge tales in passing, instead focusing on the feeling of anachronism the kind of stubbornly heroic acts associated with fiction provokes when brought into a more real world. By normal movie logic, Jones' character is most emphatically doing the right thing, but The Three Burials shows us that being driven slightly insane by…
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A bit of a modern western - this was fantastic basic yet gritty film. Tommy Lee Jones displays his fantastic acting skills and if this is anything to go by the start of a promising career as a director.
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A good film that never really captured me. I think I'll need to re-watch this one.
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Tommy Lee Jones is superb in his dual roles of lead actor and director -- I suppose that it's only the excellence in direction that's a surprise, given that it was his debut effort.
A great script by Guillermo Arriaga is brought to life with vivid and believable characters shot beautifully, largely on the dramatic landscapes of the US/Mexico border and its hinterlands.
A word for Barry Pepper too, who does brilliantly portraying the believably complex 'villain' of the piece.
Superb film, highly recommended.
Recent reviews
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For a film this stunningly beautiful, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada can at times feel oddly undercooked. Well, I say odd. When paring the script down to a bare minimum and steering well clear of any turns into genre territory probably is very conscious move on the part of writer Guillermo Arriaga and director Tommy Lee Jones. The filmmakers seem content merely to evoke westerns and revenge tales in passing, instead focusing on the feeling of anachronism the kind of stubbornly heroic acts associated with fiction provokes when brought into a more real world. By normal movie logic, Jones' character is most emphatically doing the right thing, but The Three Burials shows us that being driven slightly insane by…
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Border patrol cop kills illegal immigrant. When his friend and employer finds out that he was buried in an unmarked grave and the local police refuse to investigate the incident, he kidnaps the border patrolman and tries to make sure that justice is served. Wanted to like this one more but it just went on for a little too long.
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Mit “Three Burials – Die drei Begräbnisse des Melquiades Estrada” hat Tommy Lee Jones einen interessanten, wenn auch nicht ganz runden Film erschaffen. Dabei lebt der Film von zwei Elementen.
Das erste Element ist die Geschichte des Films. Hier gelingt es Tommy Lee Jones schon nach wenigen Minuten klar zu machenn, wer die Guten und wer die Bösen sind. So sympathisiert man schnell mit den richtigen Filmcharakteren, wenn auch die Grenzen zwischen Gut und Böse teilweise etwas verschwimmen. Denn nicht alles was die Guten in “Three Burials – Die drei Begräbnisse des Melquiades Estrada” machen ist auch im Sinne des Gesetzes. Dies zeigt sich zum Beispiel darin, dass Pete Perkins den Grenzpolizisten Mike Norton entführt.
Doch die Geschichte funktioniert nicht…
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Black comedy that raises the stakes from Alfredo Garcia's head to Melquiades Estrada's body? Complex tale of redemption with constant religious overtones? John Ford by way of Inarritu starring Sling Blade's Karl as The Exterminating Angel? A leftist argument against the death penalty? To be sure - however tonally confused - it is all of these things. There are far more interesting moments than maddening ones, but the best thing seems to overrule the lot: Three Burials is a film that preaches, in a roundabout way, a whole heap of hope. In the perpetually cynical moviegoing atmosphere, something this sincere - despite its often hair-brained conceit involving an overland trek with a rotting corpse - seems almost welcome. Commence with the comments about how cornball I am. Just go ahead and commence.
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A bit of a modern western - this was fantastic basic yet gritty film. Tommy Lee Jones displays his fantastic acting skills and if this is anything to go by the start of a promising career as a director.
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Average
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Nice cinematography. Tommy Lee Jones does a good job. Interesting story.
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I love this movie. Friendship, love, learning, redemption, terribly sad, very funny. It's got everything - it's wonderful - WATCH it.
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After a gung-ho border patrolman accidentally guns down an illegal immigrant, a local rancher kidnaps the killer and forces him to dig up the body and take it back to Mexico. Every time I re-watch Tommy Lee Jones’ directorial debut, I appreciate it a little bit more. Transplanting the sensibilities of a Flannery O’Connor story to the Texas/Mexico border, Jones populates his film with weird characters, darkly-humorous situations, beautiful scenery, and a strong undercurrent of redemption.