THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA (2005) ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Tommy Lee Jones
Tommy Lee Jones, Barry Pepper,
Julio César Cedillo, Dwight Yokam,
Melissa Leo, January Jones, Levon Helm
With a nod to "The Trouble With Harry", and fragments lifted from "Lonesome Dove" and "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia", Tommy Lee Jones logs in as a director with a macabre piece about a body that won't stay buried. Jones plays a West Texas cowboy on a quixotic mission to keep a reluctantly made promise: to see his best friend laid to rest in his home village in Mexico. The plot turns continually on what people think they know, but don't. Barry Pepper plays the unlucky Border Patrol agent Jones kidnaps and drags along on his quest. Levon Helm does a funny bit as a blind hermit. Much of the humor revolves around the desecration and decomposition of a corpse. Not everybody will find that amusing. But Jones does, and he knows that for comedy to work, it has to be played straight. Even when you're siphoning antifreeze to embalm a rotting cadaver, or setting a dead guy's head on fire. Maybe especially then.
Levon Helm
(1940-2012)
