Review: The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, ultimately, is a triumph for director Tommy Lee Jones. In his directoral debut (apart from a single made-for-TV movie), the actor has created a film not unlike himself: rugged, deceptively simple, and unwilling to compromise. That the movie is a success should not be a surprise; what is surprising, however, is the movie's weakness, and how that weakness is overcome.

Based on an original screenplay by Mexican writer-director Guillermo Arriaga, Three Burials is modern-day western about racism, honesty, and friendship, and about what it means to make a promise. Though the first half of the movie is is told in a non-linear fashion, the story quickly becomes clear: Melquiades Estrada (Julio Cedillo, in a performance of such disarming charm you wish he had survived a bit longer) crosses the US-Mexico border illegally, looking for work as a cowboy. He's hired by Pete Perkins (Jones), a much older man who has a simple life, a job he loves, and not a lot of time for the rules of the border patrol. The two men quickly form a tight bond which is cemented, as such things apparently are, by the gift of a horse and time spent with good-hearted prostitutes.

Some time after he has become established in his new life, Estrada is shot by a new, high-strung border patrol agent (Mike Norton, played by Barry Pepper). Despite being told who committed the crime, Sheriff Belmont (an astonishing Dwight Yoakam) refuses to either arrest Norton or investigate the killing. After being brushed off by the Sheriff one too many times, Perkins takes matters into his own hands, kidnapping, beating, and handcuffing the killer and putting him on a horse. After Norton is forced to dig up Estrada (thus ending burial number two), the three men head off to bury the dead man in his hometown, thus fulfilling an old promise Perkins made to his friend.

In its execution the story is just as cliched as it sounds, centered around two-dimensional characters, tear-jerking changes of heart, and predictable obstacles. Arriaga, who was widely praised for his complex 21 Grams screenplay, brings the same nonlinear approach to his script for Three Burials. However, despite being an award-winner at Cannes, the script feels oddly lightweight, particularly in terms of character development. We are asked, for example, to believe that Perkins and Estrada were so close that the latter's death nearly destroyed Perkins; it left the formerly tough cowboy so emotionally distraught that he literally tears up at the very thought of his friend's death. But this closeness is never convincingly portrayed when the men are together: in the place of development, we get dreamy talks about home and horses, arbitrary use of the word "son," and naughty trips to the city for sex.

The characters, similarly, are built on our assumptions about types, not on script-based details. There's a racist sheriff who is bad and therefore impotent, a loose local woman who's seen it all, and a mistreated young wife who can't adjust to life on the border. Instead of being brought to life by Arriaga's abundant talent, all of these figures are constructed out of age-old cliches. As the story develops, the viewer is disappointed at virtually every turn by lazy characterizations, unsurprising turns of event, and Arriaga's apparent unwillingness to take a chance and move beyond type.

There's a point, though, a little over half-way through the movie, when everything suddenly comes together. Pete is well past drunk, resting in a small, Mexican bar. He is sitting quietly, enclosed in the cocoon of luminous warmth and generosity that the bar's twinkling Christmas lights, country music, and friendly faces create. Jones the director allows his camera to take in the glow of place, and then to rest on his own aging, unshaven face. The face is exhausted and full of regret, but it still somehow manages to retain a bit of hope as well -- the whole thing is a nearly overwhelming mass of cliches, and yet your heart breaks for Pete and all that he has lost.

What has happened is that, under the leadership of a patient, confident director, Jones' cast has miraculously provided all of the realism and detail that the film's screenplay lacked. The performances are revelatory, particularly those by Barry Pepper as Mike Norton, the violent border guard, and country music star Dwight Yoakam as the racist sheriff. Both men raise their characters so far above the easy stereotypes of the screenplay that it's almost laughable: Pepper through intense physical labor and Yoakam though the subtle force of his personality.

Everything in Mike Norton's life, from sex to work, is predicated on control. When Perkins handcuffs him and takes that control away, Norton is suddenly completely adrift. He responds at first with explosions of pitiful rage, then with resignation, and finally with hopeless confusion, the whole range of which is brought eagerly to life by Pepper who with this performance moves miles beyond his previous work. He throws himself into the role with complete abandon, making the character's awkward transition from a purely physical being to one who sees wonder in the world for the first time an utterly convincing one. The performance is a magical one, and it works only because of Pepper's willingness to fail completely.

Yoakam's performance is, if possible, even more impressive, if only because he creates so much out of so little. As written, Yoakam's Sheriff Belmont is exceedingly simple: he's a racist, pure and simple and, like a lot of macho, disgusting movie characters, is also impotent. Almost from our first sighting of him, however, Belmont is impossible to hate. Through nothing but the tone of his voice and his slightly wavering eye contact, Yoakam is able to suggest that his character is simply playing a part; that his racism is something he's adopted to enable him to do his job with minimal friction. Somehow, even when Perkins has totally given up on him, Yoakam lets us know that there's something hidden deep inside the Sheriff, something he's tempted -- perhaps for the first time -- to let out. When, less than half-way through the movie, Belmont suddenly departs, it is to Yoakam's credit that the audience's main reaction is regret, accompanied by a wish to have known him better.

By the end of Three Burials, all of its weakness has fallen away in the face of a group of thrilling performances, and the work of a director with complete confidence in his cast. Jones' debut is one of those rare films that, despite its many disappointments, leave you with a tremenous feeling of optimism, and a tingle of pleasure at simply being alive.

[The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is showing this week in New York and Los Angeles in an Academy qualifying run; it will reopen in slightly wider release next month.]