Tommy Lee Jones' Underseen 2005 Western Got A Perfect Score From Roger Ebert

Tommy Lee Jones is arguably one of the best actors ever, especially when it comes to playing no-nonsense dealers of justice. Therefore, it's quite fitting that his 2005 directorial debut, "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" (or "Three Burials"), is a Western that harbors a strong moral code. The film isn't exactly as well-known as other all-time great Westerns, but it received a perfect score from Roger Ebert, and that carries some weight.

"Three Burials" sees Jones portray a ranch hand by the name of Pete Perkins. After his best friend, the eponymous Melquiades Estrada (Julia Cesar Cedillo), is shot by a Border Patrol agent (Barry Pepper), Pete kidnaps the assailant, digs up the body, and embarks on a journey to Mexico. His goal? To bury his friend in the place he requested. Jones' movie (which was written by Guillermo Arriaga) isn't a traditional tale of revenge or justice-serving — you know, the kind where the aggrieved unleashes bloody vengeance against an evildoer. It's more nuanced than that, which is why Ebert loved it. In his own words:

"'The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada' tells the kind of story that John Huston or Sam Peckinpah might have wanted to film. It begins with a bedrock of loyalty and honor between men, and mixes it with a little madness. In an era when hundreds of lives are casually destroyed in action movies, here is an entire film in which one life is honored, and one death is avenged."

Ebert also noted that "Three Burials" is a story about the poetic side of justice, comparing it to Peckinpah's "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia." (Notably both movies deal with characters traveling with corpses.) However, it also reminded him of the tales penned by one of the Western genre's most acclaimed authors.

One of Tommy Lee Jones' most celebrated performances occurs in the Coen Brothers' "No Country for Old Men," based on the Cormac McCarthy book of the same name. It's another story about hard-boiled men traversing the United States-Mexico border, and fans of the movie and its source material will probably enjoy the slow-burn, elegiac nature of "Three Burials." Be that as it may, Ebert compared Jones' neo-Western to one of the author's other acclaimed horse operas:

"The journey and its end will involve more discoveries and more surprises; it traverses the same kinds of doomed landscapes we picture when we read 'Blood Meridian' by Cormac McCarthy. What gathers in this story of lonely men and deep impulses is a kind of grandeur; Tommy Lee Jones plays Pete Perkins not as a hero but as a man who looks at what has happened to his friend and responds according to the opportunities at hand. He is a man who never puts two and two together without getting exactly four."

Like "Blood Meridian," the movie's story is a grueling voyage through bleak terrains in which the characters face moral crucibles. Without getting into spoilers, the aforementioned Border Patrol agent is forced to pay for some of his previous transgressions and own his sins, which adds a revenge element to the narrative. The film isn't nearly as brutal as "Blood Meridian," mind you, but both stories share enough similarities to complement each other.

If you are looking for a shoot 'em up Western, this isn't the movie for you. However, if you are seeking something more contemplative that serves justice in a different way, "Three Burials" is essential viewing.