This review was originally written by myself, here: www.fritzlfan.wordpress.com With The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Tommy Lee Jones showed that his capabilities and experience as an actor could be put to good use behind the camera. The plot begins with a border patrolman mistakenly killing a Mexican cowboy, Melquiades Estrada, then burying the body in the desert. When the body is uncovered, it is given a proper burial in the local cemetery, whilst Pete Perkins, the friend of the patrolman, Mike Norton, attempts to discover the truth behind the killing. After Pete (Tommy Lee Jones) discovers that it was in fact Mike who shot Melquiades, he forces ...  Read the complete review

Even though the high point of the Texan frontier, cowboys, Mexicans, corrupt sheriffs and deputies, and revenge was over a hundred years ago, ostensibily it still very much exists today. That same barren desert dividing Mexico and Texas is still there, as undeveloped as it was back in the time of the bounty hunters. Tommy Lee Jones raises this very issue in his second outing as a director, the Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, creating a film that very much follows a similar pattern to the classic Western, but is also very much its own unique film, cross-genre and an impressive piece of indie film-making that is a rarity these days. Melquiades Estrada ...  Read the complete review

Please note this is a film only review and makes no mention of DVD format extras. At a time when the world as at it most mistrusting in a cross cultural sense, with one secular or religious group suspiciously eying and pointing fingers at the next, this film, in many ways is well timed and very relevant. But with the focus on the middle east and 9/11 in films and on TV maybe for a more general understanding of cultural intolerance we need to step back a little further, forget the specifics and just view these problems from a higher, less specific position. Tommy Lee Jones directorial debut offers us this and much more besides. By focusing on a story that ...  Read the complete review