Tommy Lee Jones shines in directorial debut ‘Estrada’

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In theaters

THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA, directed by Tommy Lee Jones, written by Guillermo Arriaga, 120 minutes, rated R. Starts tonight, Railroad Square Cinema, Waterville.

A stiff shows up with gruesome repetition in the new Tommy Lee Jones movie, “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada,” and some will be surprised to learn that it isn’t Jones’ former college roommate, Al Gore, in spite of how swell he would have been for the part.

Instead, the dead man is Melquiades Estrada (Julia Cesar Cedillo), an illegal Mexican immigrant who is mysteriously shot and killed while working as a cowboy tending to sheep in Texas. Who did him in? Initially, that’s the question around which you believe the film will build, with Jones, in his fine directorial debut, weaving through time to piece together the mystery.

But as written by Guillermo Arriago, screenwriter for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s terrific “Amores Perros” and “21 Grams,” the movie quickly dispenses with its mystery and exposes the murderer. Since the film’s success doesn’t hinge on the revelation, it doesn’t harm the movie.

What “Burials” has on its mind is something deeper, a character study that recalls the richness of Sam Peckinpah and John Ford – and even a flash of Quentin Tarantino in its bold use of title cards – with Jones creating exactly the sort of movie you would expect. Like the actor, “Burials” is unpretentious, interesting, laid back, slightly askew. You expect an erotic undercurrent and a violent edge to run through it, and you get it.

The film stars Jones as Pete Perkins, Estrada’s employer and friend, who is determined to find out who murdered him, why they murdered him, and make them pay for murdering him.

Dwight Yoakum is the local sheriff who has his own reasons not to get involved, and so he doesn’t. Barry Pepper is Mike Norton, the squirrelly border patrol officer who has passionless sex with his wife, Lou Ann (January Jones), while she watches comparatively more interesting soap operas. Once, they were the most popular kids in their high school, with the hope of promising futures pinned on them because of their good looks. But now, they live near poverty in a trailer along the Mexican border, and in spite of their youth, they seem every bit as dried up as the terrain surrounding them.

Looking for new adventures, Lou Ann finds her way to the local coffee shop, where she meets waitress Rachel (Melissa Leo, marvelous), who loves her husband, Bob, but not enough to be faithful to him – she’s sleeping with Pete and the sheriff. In the relationship that builds between the two women, we learn about Estrada, who was trying to earn money to bring his family across the border, while Pete is busy kidnapping one of the other characters in a plot twist that consumes the rest of the movie.

“The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” has no trouble living up to its title – it does indeed bury Estrada three times, and each time with increasing difficulty. By the end of the movie, his corpse has been exhumed twice, ripped apart by coyotes, baked to a crisp in the Texas heat, and then carried to Mexico via horseback for the proper burial Estrada once said in passing to Pete that he wanted.

Only in one scene does Pete appear to truly see Estrada for what he has become; it devastates him. Otherwise, in the blindness and madness that can accompany loss and grief, he’s just doing what anyone would do when a great friend passes. Pete is carrying out Estrada’s wishes, seeing them through, regardless of who he might inconvenience along the way. There’s beauty in that, and it colors the movie.

Grade: B+

On video and DVD

MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS, directed by Stephen Frears, written by Martin Sherman, 102 minutes, rated R.

What Stephen Frears presents in “Mrs. Henderson Presents” is twofold – a stage filled with artfully exposed naked bodies, including one scene in which Bob Hoskins bares it all (the courage!), and a shift in form for Judi Dench, who at once courts and leaves behind the stuffy, ferocious costume drag for which she long has been typecast.

Not that typecasting has exactly been a negative for Dench – or for her fans. Still, when you’ve donned your share of powdered wigs and huffed and puffed through a catalog of period pieces, a little good-natured costume comedy must come as a relief.

Whether this is the reason the actress is so loose and punchy in the role of Laura Henderson, the real-life widow who once used her formidable wealth and societal clout during the war years to buy in London’s West End the famed Windmill Theatre, is up for grabs. Whatever the case, Dench is in her element here, bulldozing through the movie and tossing off the one-liners as if she came to have a good time.

Before the movie leaches into sentiment toward the end, her good time is infectious.

The film follows the anything-goes Henderson as she renovates the theater, seemingly out of boredom, and then decides to hire the combative Vivian Van Damm (Hoskins) to run it for her. What Van Damm imagines is something called Revudeville, a cross between vaudeville and Broadway musicals that initially is a smash. But as with any successful outing, soon the competition is on, with the surrounding theaters following suit in a mass raid of copycatting.

Facing declining ticket sales but hardly about to be outdone, Henderson brazenly decides what people need in London is a little skin. The English could learn something from the French, she suggests without a wince, and goes about convincing Lord Chamberlain (Christopher Guest, wonderful) over lunch to allow her to have full nudity in her shows, to which he reluctantly agrees.

For three-quarters of the movie, this proves to be spirited fun – everyone is having a grand time and the story moves swiftly. But then the movie’s flaws begin to show.

Secondary characters who at first appear promising are disappointingly never fully realized; most of the women are reduced to just bared breasts, perhaps a good voice, but little more. Worse, the movie ultimately wants to elicit from us something deeper than laughter, as if laughter isn’t enough. Instead, we get Laura’s maudlin backstory, which sucks the air out of a movie, but hardly sinks it. The movie comes recommended for all of the fun that comes before it.

Grade: B

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays in Discovering, Fridays in Happening, and weekends in Television. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.

The Video-DVD Corner

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores. Those in bold print are new to video stores this week.

Batman Begins ? A

Brokeback Mountain ? A-

Broken Flowers ? A-

The Brothers Grimm ? D-

Capote ? A

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ? A-

The Constant Gardener ? A-

Dawson?s Creek: Complete Sixth Season ? B-

Fun With Dick and Jane ? C

Good Night, and Good Luck ? A-

Quantum Leap: Complete Fourth Season ? B

Red Eye ? B+