Tommy Lee Jones’ first stint behind the camera is a film that asks much patience from its audience but offers great reward. Much like the Assassination of Jesse James, it’s a slow picture that takes its sweet time establishing the rural, rundown southern Texas town and its inhabitants, the only decent thing of which is the friendship between Jones’ Pete Perkins and the murdered Melquiades Estrada.
Like all good westerns, there is an underlying theme here. It tells the story of one man’s quest for redemption, only, ironically, the man in question (Barry Pepper) doesn’t know it yet. Only after unwittingly murdering an innocent man, the most awful of acts, and the journey of burial that Jones takes him on is there and semblance of hope. When we meet him, Pepper is horrid, casually beating illegal immigrants and treating his wife with indifference bordering on neglect. Come the end, he is a man changed, bettered through Jones’ justified cruelty. He has gained his redemption.
It’s a moving and heartbreaking picture that can stand proud next other great westerns of the last decade
5/5
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