FOR JUSTICE. FOR LOYALTY. FOR FRIENDSHIP.
When Melquiades Estrada (Julio César Cedillo) is accidentally shot in Texas, his good friend Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones) honors a vow and takes his body back to Mexico to bury him in a small town… but he also takes the man (Pepper) who killed him along for the journey. Jones’s directing debut was based on a real incident, bears similarities to a William Faulkner novel and is largely a modern Western. Jones brings a personal touch to the grumpy lead character and the Texas setting, the place where he was born and has a ranch, and also shows sympathy for the plight of illegal aliens. Mythical in tone, with bizarre elements, but very engaging after a while. Barry Pepper is a stand-out.
2005-U.S.-France. 116 min. Color. Widescreen. Produced by Tommy Lee Jones, Luc Besson, Michael Fitzgerald, Pierre-Ange Le Pogam. Directed by Tommy Lee Jones. Screenplay: Guillermo Arriaga. Cinematography: Chris Menges. Cast: Tommy Lee Jones (Pete Perkins), Barry Pepper (Mike Norton), Julio César Cedillo (Melquiades Estrada), Dwight Yoakam, Melissa Leo, January Jones… Levon Helm.
Cannes: Best Actor (Jones), Screenplay.
Last word: “Guillermo wrote the screenplay in Spanish and had it translated by somebody he often works with. I hatched a plan to hire two other translators so I would have three English translations before I began to put together my own. Several drafts later, we had language that felt like it belonged in South Texas and sounded right, with the right rhythm and the right poetry, and we had the Northern Texas Spanish in the movie well polished. Guillermo has a very poetic ear for dialogue in Spanish and I tried to have the English dialogue match that poetic quality.” (Jones, EmanuelLevy.com)
