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List Price: $14.94 | | Label: Sony Pictures
Salesrank: 6449
Released: June 6, 2006 |
| Our Price: $3.99 |
| Used Price: $0.90 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Oscar® winner Tommy Lee Jones (Best Supporting Actor The Fugitive 1993) directs and stars in this poetic and striking modern-day Western. Peter Perkins (Jones) is a veteran cowboy who embodies the values of the old west living in a small Texas town bordering the U.S. and Mexico. He hires Melquiades Estrada as a ranch hand and quickly befriends the man. But when Estrada is gunned down under mysterious circumstances Perkins takes justice into his own hands and kidnaps a trigger-happy border patrolman (Barry Pepper - Saving Private Ryan) forcing Perkins to unearth Estrada's body and accompany Perkins on horseback on the long and treacherous journey through the frontier mountains and back roads of Mexico to bring his friend's body home. System Requirements:Running Time 121 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/MISC. Rating: R UPC: 043396148253 Manufacturer No: 14825
Description of The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada:
One of the most acclaimed films of 2005, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada marks the assured and worldly-wise directorial debut of veteran actor Tommy Lee Jones. While the majority of critics and Oscar®-voters heaped praise upon the "gay cowboy" breakthrough of Brokeback Mountain, Jones delivered this equally resonant, elegiac study of male friendship in a Western setting, crafting a flawless parable of borderline existence on the border of Texas and Mexico. It is there, amidst some of the most beautifully bleak landscapes in recent American film, that Jones and screenwriter Guillermo Arriga (Amores Perros, 21 Grams) set their existential quest for meaning, focusing on the honor-bound commitment of Texas ranch foreman Pete (played by Jones with a heavy heart and deep moral conviction) to return the body of illegal Mexican immigrant ranch-hand Melquiades Estrada (played in flashback scenes by Julio Cedillo) to his preferred resting place in the Mexican wilderness. Estrada had been accidentally shot by Mike (Barry Pepper), a newly-arrived U.S. border patrolman, and Pete forces Mike to participate in his cross-country ritual of duty--a voyage of revenge and redemption that will change both men forever, and bring some semblance of meaning to the senseless death of Pete's good friend. In triumphant collaboration with cinematographer Chris Menges, Jones carefully instills his superior cast (including Dwight Yoakam, January Jones, and Melissa Leo) with the slow, desperate rhythms of lives on the border (of Texas and Mexico, and life and death), prompting many critics to draw praiseworthy comparisons to Sam Peckinpah's thematically similar 1974 drama Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and the exquisite absurdities of Luis Bunuel. Whatever your own reaction might be, Three Burials is not a film to view or respond to lightly; there's humor and more than a bit of madness to this great, inquisitive film, but Jones is looking deeply into the soul of humankind, and he dares you to draw your own conclusions about the journey Pete and Mike have taken. --Jeff Shannon
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada Reviews:
Just my opinion 
2008-06-23 - After reading all the reviews, I ordered this movie and I can not tell you how disappointed I was! There was not one thing I enjoyed about this movie. I thought it was depressing from the beginning and never got any better. The acting was good, but as for the movie, I would give it 0 stars!! Don't waste your money on this one. Buy Man of the House. It is great!
BTC
Riding righting wrongs 
2008-05-17 - This is a modern western drama well worth watching for its spirited take on friendship in the face of racism with an ethics lesson focused on atonement and redemption.
A border patrol guard with a penchant for violence accidentally shoots a Mexican working in America near the border but leaves him to die. The Mexican's friend played by Tommy Lee Jones slowly fixes to have the border patrol guard kidnapped and forces him to bring the body across to Mexico for burial. Along the way they come across many characters and situations that slowly aid in delivering the patrol guard from his prejudice.
There is so much depth in character and detail to this story that anyone with a love of movies should watch it. This is a fantastic first director's effort from Jones also and shows that there is still plenty of room for original stories on the silver screen. Its art house appeal is also significant.
three buriels of some mexican
2008-04-06 - excellent movie couldnt get glue off dvd case from security stickers worst case I've ever seen thinking of trying paint thinner to remove it.
2 thumbs up
2008-02-15 - I stumbled upon this movie and saw pieces of it until I became fixated by it and had to buy a copy for myself and to share. Tommy Lee Jones grew up in SanSaba Texas and his grand father had a construction company near the border. TLJ may or may not be a great actor and this role will not settle the argument because I swear he was not acting, if he is not a Texas cow hand, then all he did was copy the real people he has seen all his life. Most of the extras were not acting either, they were themselves, believe me I live there (here?). You have to pay attention as the story is told with a lot of flashbacks but it worked. There are several stories all being told and they are all to much like truth to be fiction. Only the title story would be fiction but it is still a real window into life on our frontier. Ya done good Tommy
After posting my review I read the other reviews. It is interesting the different takes people have on it perhaps based on how far from here they live or their own prejudices and assumptions. Mike Norton is the only Border Patrol agent ( aka La Migra) who is such an evil person. It is not all whites are bad, all Mexicans good. It is not that we need a fence or a wall (ask the Russians, you build a wall and you still have to watch it). I do not see that illegal immigration is much of an issue here, the local authorities would not have cared any more if it had been a US hitch hiker. The blind old man gives TLJ a way of saying they do not want to offend God and lets one reflect on how your own life might end lonely or worse in a nursing home. Other reviewers can not imagine someone doing something like this for a friend. Those people would be out of place and easy to ID in a truck stop, a cowboy bar, a dirt floor cantena and probably a GI bar as well. Maybe I am not smart enough or educated enough to make a lot of the comparisons made by so many reviewers but it is a pretty simple story done with real people... Much like Glory Road and Friday Night Lights. I thought there were lots of funny parts and yes I did wonder about Pete telling LouAnn that Mike had killed Mel in Spanish. I also wonder about reviewers that do not know a goat from a sheep or a coyote from a Fox.
Got A Jones For January 
2008-01-09 - Brilliant movie. I won't go into the plot, don't have the time, but if you liked Lonesome Dove and such, you will love this one. It's a tad gritty though. Jones's face is a craggy and rugged and beat up as the rough Texican country that the movie is set in. And ol' Levon Helm has seen better days, too; both could stand some serious dermatological hydration.
But here's the thing: Barry Pepper's border guard deserves a knock upside the head for not keeping little hot blonde January Jones home and happy. This angelic actress had a very tiny bit part in Love Actually, and she has to be the most beautiful creature I've seen in a looooonnngggg time. I'm not sure she's such a good actress--who cares?--but as far as eye candy goes, she's sweeter than sugar! So good-looking in fact, that I found it very hard to believe that Pepper's character was bored or depressed with her around. But maybe that was the point; perhaps Tommy Lee was trying to suggest that this guy was so zoned out and preoccupied that he couldn't be jarred out of his funk by anything or anyone.
Tommy Lee Jones has certainly come a long way since "The Eyes Of Laura Mars".
