The remainder of the characters played by Yoakam, Leo, and Jones, really have very little to do. And, Julio Cesar Cedillo is quite entertaining as the namesake of the film. It was nice to see him in something accessible again. Barry Pepper shines in a really strong role. He has an obvious talent for directing, and he was the perfect person to play the role of Pete. Tommy Lee Jones delivers a stellar performance as star and director here. Thanks to the lush cinematography of the Texas/Mexico desert, there is a lot for the audience to see other than the torture and the pain. After all, Norton really didn't mean to kill Melquiades, and it appears that Pete knows this for a duration of that second half, but he is still just as menacing and just as vicious with him. Once again, I understand the reasoning, but I just thought it was a little too brutal. One minute you think he has decided to take it a little easy on Norton, and then he has a gun to his face. There is also too much bipolar behavior from Pete's character. I understand the reasoning, but it seems like deciding to set your friend on fire instead of letting some ants crawl on him might be canceling the other out somewhat. One sequence involves Pete trying to get the ants off his dead friend, and deciding to light his face on fire in order to get the ants off. Things pick up when Pete begins his journey, but the second half turns into something very unusual, as Melquiades' body becomes more and more rotted, and as Norton is put through various forms of agony at the hands of Pete. This first half sets up that friendship, Norton as a dirty patrolman who will take any chance he can to slap a Mexican around, and three others characters who really have very little relevance to the primary plot of the story - a waitress (Melissa Leo), Norton's wife (January Jones), and the sheriff of the town. The first half of the film is intercut with flashbacks of Pete and Melquiades, from the time when they meet throughout their friendship, up until Melquiades' death. By the end of the film, both Pete and Mike have taken on a little wisdom. He kidnaps the patrolman who killed Melquiades and the three of them - Pete, Mike, and Melquiades - begin a trek across the border to take the deceased man home. We learn that Pete made a promise to Melquiades, that if he died before Pete, that Pete would take his body to the town of Jimenez, Mexico, and bury him with his wife and children. So, Pete decides to do a little investigating of his own, which eventually brings him to the door of Border Patrolman Mike Norton (Barry Pepper), who thought Melquiades was shooting at him only to discover, after he was dead, that the man had actually been shooting at a coyote. Pete pressures Sheriff Belmont (Dwight Yoakam) to find the murderer responsible, but Belmont does as little as possible because the deceased was a Mexican immigrant. We see the look of pain and loss as he looks upon his dead friend in the morgue. His best friend in the world was a cowboy named Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones). The film opens when two troopers a dead Mexican in the Texas desert, a man identified as Melquiades Estrada (Julio Cesar Cedillo). My feelings on the film turned out to be - well - mixed. So, needless to say, I walked into the theatre to see this film with the highest of expectations, something I would have never predicted from a film directed by Tommy Lee Jones. It dominated the Cannes Film Festival and the early buzz was phenomenal, but when Tommy Lee needed the critics the most, they opted for "Brokeback Mountain" and "Crash" instead. I mean - seriously - can you imagine anyone sitting through ninety-minutes of "The Benchwarmers"? So, I decided to catch an indie flick that I not yet had the chance to see, "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada", which was very likely the most critically acclaimed film of last year, though it received zero Oscar nominations and very little critical buzz when it actually counted. There was really nothing else opening in wide release this weekend that I wanted to see. I had already promised I would see "Lucky Number Slevin" with a friend on Sunday night, so that was out of the question. Here was the scenario - it was Friday night and I really wanted to see a movie.
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