This is veteran actor; Tommy Lee Jones’s first attempt at directing a full-length film and it’s a stunner. The tale revolves around Melquiades Estrada, a Mexican laborer and close friend of rancher, Pete Perkins, played by Jones. Estrada is shot and killed by the racist and overzealous border patrol officer, Mike Norton (Barry Pepper) but it was an accidental shooting. Estrada had shot at a coyote to scare it away from the goats he was tending and Norton thought that it was he being shot at. Estrada is dispatched to a shallow grave in the desert; in effect, the first burial. Norton is allowed by his superiors to walk away from the blatant killing with a slap on the wrist but Perkins is not having any of this. He’s enraged by the injustice and vows to do his friend’s bidding, while at the same time, exacting a sort of revenge.

In an earlier conversation between the two, Estrada reflects on death and how awful it would be to be buried in the U.S. He makes Pete swear that if anything happens to him, to make sure that he’s buried back in Mexico, specifically in a small village there. He draws a crude map for Perkins and the two part company. After Estrada’s death, he is buried by the authorities; the second burial. Pete kidnaps Norton, forces him at gunpoint to dig up Estrada and together, the two take off for Mexico, Norton as a prisoner, toting the corpse of Melquiades Estrada for return and re-burial in the place he requested.

It is a strange and surreal journey, with plenty of symbolism - three burials, for starters, an odd encounter with an old blind man who’s been living in the desert for thirty years (in a great cameo appearance by Levon Helm) and people and places said to exist that really don’t. There is something of a Don Quixote theme with Perkins, as Quixote, soldiering on loyally with what at times, seems a fruitless quest - Norton, as his sidekick, Sancho Panza, albeit involuntary and unwilling. There are suggestions of redemption for Norton in the various acts of penance that are thrust on him to fulfil as well as moments of black comedy, especially in scenes with the corpse, Perkins conceding in a sly aside, “You look like hell, son”. The film moves on a non-linear time continuum, travelling back and forth between events and is roughly divided into three segments, each having to do with one of the burials.

Not only does Tommy Lee Jones do a wonderful job of directing this but is also spot on in the lead role as the loyal Perkins, out to avenge his comrade. He plays it real, he’s a tough cowpoke but also flawed and bumbling by turns. Barry Pepper makes the character of the racist border patrolman Norton, not only despicable but also vulnerable, simply acting from his own naiveté and inexperience. Country singer (and actor), Dwight Yoakam has a nice little role as the exasperated sheriff, trying to go by the book but running into continuous obstacles. The women in this are great - Melissa Leo as Rachel, a diner waitress and everyone’s lover, and January Jones as Lou Ann, the frustrated wife of Norton. Julio Cedillo plays Melquiades Estrada, in a series of sensitive flashbacks that make you understand the depth of Pete’s feelings for him and why he would undertake this journey, as well as question Estrada’s naiveté and casual heartfelt demeanour as it begins to dawn that Estrada may have had his own slight agenda.

The great writer, Cormac McCarthy has written several western novels (‘Blood Meridian’, The Border Trilogy’ and the recent, ‘No Country for Old Men’), set in the Texas/Mexico borderland. All constantly evoke a savage and poetic sense of this mysterious region. Tommy Lee Jones, an acknowledged fan of McCarthy’s, has managed to portray that same sense visually on the screen in this tale of friendship, loyalty and redemption in the modern day west.

Marc Goldin currently lives in Chicago, with three cats, each one more long-haired than the last. Interests have ranged from medieval monasticism to discontinued stations on the London Underground – literary likes too diverse (some would say schizo) to list here although the last several years have been witness to an intimacy with Scottish and Irish literature. American Southern and Beat era lit also account for some of the ‘missing years’. Music tastes run the gamut from Cuban Danzon to Ska (all three waves but having a specific attachment to the second, two-tone period) to the Tuvan throat singers. Has written book reviews for a now defunct Irish literature site and has several short stories in various stages of development. Mad for black and white photography and aspires to someday have a complete collection of photos documenting every close in the Grassmarket area of Edinburgh. Works in the IT dept. of a French company in the current political climate. In football, supports Chelsea, Hibs, and for the sake of employment security, Marseille. For more articles and reviews by Marc on The New Review, click here

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.