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There is little doubt that Tommy Lee Jones has potential as an absurdist filmmaker, but this snail's-paced, oddly discomforting 2005 film is neither a mythic tale nor a prodigious directorial debut for the veteran actor. The pokey momentum and arid West Texas locations remind me a bit of Bruce Beresford's 1983 "Tender Mercies", but Guillermo Arriaga's screenplay lifts the intriguing plot device of Sam Peckinpah's 1974 "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" to move the story forward. Unfortunately, the resulting film does not come close to either classic because of its unsavory characters, implausible and often irrelevant story turns and worst of all, the deadening pace of the whole venture.
It focuses on local rancher Pete Perkins, who finds out through the local sleep-around waitress that his friend and ranch hand, Melquiades Estrada, an Illegal Mexican immigrant, has been shot dead by a new border patrolman named Mike Norton. The first half of the overlong film shifts back and forth in time and bounces among characters that may or may not matter at the end, while the second half is a desultory trek where Perkins is intent on bringing Estrada's decaying body back across the border to his hometown. This is where the absurdist aspect comes to fruition as Perkins goes to extreme measures to preserve the body and the intent of the mission. I was hopeful the more straightforward narrative that takes hold on the journey would lead to a greater emotional resonance, but what it really does is elongate the story unnecessarily.
Jones is fine as Perkins, though his character is mostly a cipher as we are never clear why Estrada is that meaningful a friend to him. Barry Pepper has an unenviable task playing the surly Norton, and he bears the brunt of the plot's absurdities in the second half. Dwight Yoakam portrays the local sheriff on one consistently sour note, though there are decent sideline contributions by Julio Cedillo as Estrada and Melissa Leo as the waitress. Levon Helm shows up in a cameo as an old, blind farmer, but I couldn't help but be reminded of Gene Hackman's bit as the blind monk in "Young Frankenstein". Give credit to Chris Menges for his appropriately sun-scorched cinematography of the desolate terrain. The DVD is sparse on extras - a full-screen or widescreen viewing option and a relatively terse commentary track by Jones, Yoakam and actress January Jones, who has a red-herring role as Norton's bored wife Lou Ann. In a relatively head-scratching move, the Cannes Film Festival jury bestowed awards for Jones' acting and Arriaga's screenplay last year.
score 5/10
EUyeshima 12 June 2006
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1392148/ |
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2-12-2019 07:48:31