.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

It's been a while since I have so eagerly awaited a DVD release as much as The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Showing at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005, the film surprised many by winning the Best Actor (Tommy Lee Jones) and Best Screenplay honors while being nominated for the Golden Palm Award.

In a competition that included David Cronenberg's A History of Violence, Bill Murray in Broken Flowers and Sin City by Robert Rodriguez, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is the one film that I kept hearing about during entertainment productions' coverage and in reading in print by those critics attending the event.

But the film didn't get the backing and push from its distributor (Sony Classics) and at its peak, its widest release was only 356 theatres. The result was a domestic tally of less than $6 million and it left many common citizens - in particular, yours truly, waiting for a local theatrical release that never happened.

Thank God for DVD. Released this week, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada gets another chance to capture the audience it so richly deserves. And I strongly suggest that you saddle up your horse and trot down to the local DVD rental store to appreciate this gem.

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada tells a fairly simple story. A young illegal cowboy is found shot dead in the desert of Texas. A local rancher, Pete Perkins (Jones) had befriended the Mexican previous to his fate and personally crusades to bring justice to the individual who was responsible for his demise. On the other side of the rifle was border patrolman Mike Norton (Barry Pepper) who clearly has anger issues, but who's act of violence was innocently considered an act of self defense. Norton had just moved to Texas from Cincinnati with his young wife Lou Ann (January Jones) and was having enough struggles trying to fit into the small town kind of life prior to his 'incident'. But after Perkins finds out that Pete was the shooter, life for both men was about to change forever.

With Pete's revelation, he kidnaps Norton and then digs up the rotting corpse of Melquiades Estrada to ensure that he keeps his promise of returning the body back to a small town in Mexico. The journey back to Estrada's homeland is the heart of the film as Pete pushes, bullies and threatens Norton into doing his willing while having the audience question his vigilante tactics.

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is a character drama that harnesses some of the best acting of the past year. From the grizzled Tommy Lee to supporting cast members Dwight Yoakam and Melissa Leo there is nary a misstep among the ensemble and each character no matter how big or small the part is essential in bringing Pete's odyssey to its peaceful conclusion.

This credit can go - surprisingly - to director Tommy Lee Jones. Tommy is just the latest of a long line of Oscar winning actors that has had a desire to put himself behind the camera at the same time as in front (Tom Hanks and Nicholas Cage are two others that come so quickly to mind). But as a rookie big film director, Jones shows the strengths of a veteran and uses all of the resources to pull off a one of the best films of the year.

Maybe the most incredible feat pulled off by Jones is that he has given a role, and I would argue even a personality, to a dead corpse that is the forefront of the trek. Be warned, this is no Weekend At Bernie's. Instead we have a love of a soulless shell that was as real and as believable as the love two gay cowboys that was projected in another small movie that was so heralded last year. By treating the corpse with as much love and reverence as he did while Estrada was alive, Jones is able to walk what is a very fine line separating a promise to friend and the grotesqueness of the request. No easy task let me assure you.

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is easily one of the best films that you will find on the DVD shelves this year. Much like it's Cannes competitor, A History of Violence, it is a film that probably even plays better on the small screen where you can pause, catch your breath and marvel at the scenery without having to worry about validated parking or whether you have enough time to mortgage your home to upgrade your popcorn combo.

A high recommendation.