movie review

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Quick Info
Director: Tommy Lee Jones
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Barry Pepper, Julio Cedillo, Dwight Yoakum, January Jones, Melissa Leo
Year of Release: 2006
Country: USA
Language: English & Spanish
Awards: Best Actor (Cannes), Best Screenplay (Cannes), Grand Prix (Flanders)
Genre: Western, Drama
MPAA Rating: R
My Rating: **** (meaning?)

Synopsis :
An aging cowboy decides to seek justice for the death of his best friend by forcing the killer to undertake the long journey with him to take his friend's body home.

Review :
A quirky, post-modern western told in a nonlinear fashion with a touch of magical realism that lacks a 'proper' ending.  If that tells you the limits of the audience, perhaps an expanded horizon is in order. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is a story about retribution, loneliness, vengeance, and memory.  It's also a story about justice, friendship, redemption, and rememory.  It's about death, and it's about life.  It's about the past, about a code of friendship, loyalty, responsibility, and honor, the beauty of the wilderness contrasted with disaffection, boredom, empty lives and emotionally vacuous people trapped in lives they are unwilling to brave escape from.  They are also some of the most profoundly human characters I've seen in a Hollywood movie in a very long time.  Three Burials is complex, with depth and compassion for all involved (even the killer) - and well worth watching if you can handle it.