-->Fans of screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga’s Amoros Perres and 21 Grams will appreciate this mystery-cum-western that marks the directorial debut of its star, Tommy Lee Jones.
Tommy Lee Jones stars in and
makes his directorial debut with this West Texas-set drama. I took awhile
getting to see it, in part, because the title sounded boring or pretentious.
It’s neither, though it is slow-paced. It starts off like a John Sayles
movie, cutting between a border guard (Barry Pepper) and his wife (January
Jones), a waitress in the local coffee shop (Michelle Leo), and Tommy Lee
himself, as a friend of the recently shot title character. But then—mystery
solved—that’s only the first two burials. The last, longest part of the film
winds like a snaky appendage from the rest, slowly shedding the layers of the
main characters. Oscar-winning cinematographer Chris Menges makes the most of
the location shooting, with Texas also doubling for Mexico. This movie wasn’t
nominated for any Oscars, but did earn both Jones (as an actor) and screenwriter
Guillermo Arriaga honors at Cannes. Admirers of Arriaga’s last two films, Amoros
Perres and 21 Grams, will probably like this one too. It starts off
like a Tex-Mex hybrid of those movies, yet the second half is something
different, an eccentric Western that offers a couple more surprises and some
absorbing, border-crossing detours on the way to that final resting place.
posted 9/9/13
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