Few actors working today are more perfectly suited to play craggy, taciturn cowboys than Tommy Lee Jones. Perhaps only Clint Eastwood would have the right combination of gruff sincerity, weather-beaten looks and an undercurrent of meanness to tackle Pete Perkins, the main character in Jones' directorial debut, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Jones' portrayal of Pete is the high point of this uneven film, which suffers from many of the same heavy-handed coincidences and smug ironies that marred writer Guillermo Arriaga's last script, for the terminally gloomy 21 Grams.
Three Burials isn't nearly as dreadful as 21 Grams was, though, and that's almost entirely thanks to Jones, who brings warmth and humor to both his direction and his lead performance. Pete is a rancher in a Texas border town, and the title character is an illegal immigrant and one of Pete's best workers and friends. When Melquiades is accidentally shot and killed by trigger-happy border patrol officer Mike Norton (Barry Pepper), the local sheriff (Dwight Yoakam) conspires with Norton's superiors to ignore the incident, since Melquiades is merely an itinerant Mexican.
But Pete won't stand for that, since he's made a promise to Melquiades to return the man to his family in Mexico should misfortune befall him in Texas. Pete kidnaps Norton and drags him on an increasingly quixotic journey to Melquiades' home town, all the while pursued by the sheriff and the border patrol. It goes without saying that Norton will learn that Mexicans are people, too, and that the very individuals he mistreated early in the film will conveniently become his saviors.
There are some truly groan-inducing moments of supposed serendipity, as when the Mexican woman Norton so casually punched in the face at the beginning of the film is the only person who can cure him of a rattlesnake bite. Arriaga's characterization is also mostly stereotypical and shallow: The sexist, brutish Norton reads Hustler, while his mall-obsessed, snooty wife (January Jones) peruses Us Weekly. Jones actually brings a bit of nuance to her one-note character, but, sadly, she disappears halfway into the film.
Jones, too, gives Pete more depth than Arriaga's script provides, although nearly all of it is in the creases of the actor's face. Pete says little and almost never expresses his feelings, but Jones effectively conveys the rancher's deep love for his friend and strong sense of morality. Early on, we see Pete actually enjoying himself, cavorting with a local waitress and bonding with Melquiades, and these are the moments in which the film has the most humanity.
It degenerates far too quickly into a deterministic morality fable, though, nearly as condescending at times as 21 Grams or Crash, with which it shares some equally simplistic lessons on race. All of the Mexicans in the film are simple and perfect, while all of the white people (except for Pete) are either evil or very deeply flawed. The pseudo-metaphysical ending is the only time we get a glimpse of deception from Melquiades, and even that is played as some sort of transcendent metaphor rather than as a simple lie.
Still, you can't help feel for Pete and his plain-spoken, heartfelt mission to do right by his friend, and be swept up in Jones' humanistic performance. He smartly avoids showboating, to which so many actors give in when directing themselves, and his visual style nicely captures the beauty of the American Southwest. Three Burials is a film with a lot on its mind, but it succeeds best when it leaves ideas behind and focuses on simple beauty.