Movie Review: The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2006) 

Directed by Tommy Lee Jones

Written by Guillermo Arriaga 

Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Barry Pepper, Julio Cedillo, Dwight Yoakam, January Jones 

Release Date February 3rd, 2006 

Published February 21st, 2006

There are places we won't believe exist anymore. Modernization and technology we would assume has phased these places out of existence. Places like the old west. Those lawless dust bowls filled with characters ready to drink, fight and kill if they feel like it.

However, watch the headlines and take a look to the south. The old west is still out there in small pockets of the border between America and Mexico. These are places where cowboys still ride horses and carry shotguns. Places where border patrol guards ride like old school texas rangers delivering swift justice to potential border crossers.

As all await Washington's decision to modernize the border crossing with modern fence technology, the old west attitude thrives in lawlessness and old school justice. The new video The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is a snapshot of this new 'old west' attitude. Directed by Tommy Lee Jones, Three Burials takes a cursory glance at border policy with a broader eye on how a modern society often doesn't evolve as a whole.

Melquiades Estrada (Juan Cedillo) was a kind soul simply out to make money for his family. Quiet, unassuming and hard working it is no surprise that he would earn the trust and friendship of a hard working roughneck rancher like Pete (Tommy Lee Jones). Bonding over heads of steer and women of ill repute, Mel and Pete became brothers.

When Melquiades is murdered Pete first seeks modern justice, an investigation by the local sheriff (Dwight Yoakam). However, unable to escape old west attitudes, it isn't long before Pete is ready for some old school biblical justice.

The man who killed Melquiades is a mystery to Pete but not those of us in the audience. He is Mike a newly arrived, wet behind the ears college dropout who has just accepted a job as a border patrol officer. Moving with his wife LouAnn (January Jones) to a nameless border is for both like a trip back in time some 100 years. Used to the creature comforts of the mall and cable television, the former High School sweethearts, voted most likely to succeed, find themselves failures even in this dust covered piece of nowhere.

Mike has grown quite bitter since his days as a king of high school. Spiritually defeated he takes occasion to let out his aggressions on border crossing mexicans. Warned more than once by his supervisor about his brutal assaults and arrests, it is no wonder that he is the in the killing of Melquiades.

The fates can be cruel. While you might believe that Mike in his typically brutish fashion murdered Melquiades  in cold blood, the facts are quite different. The facts however, matter not to Pete who simply and singleminded seeks justice and also seeks to keep a blood promise to Melquiades.

Pete must take Mel back to Mexico and bury him in his hometown and Pete plans to make certain Mike witnesses this funeral first hand.

Thus begins the true thrust of The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada. A death march across the barren desert as irony of ironies a pair gringos crosses the border into Mexico.

Written with hard bitten determination by Guillermo Arriaga, Three Burials has a soft spoken hypnotic pitch to it's dialogue. While Arriaga's words often ache to be screamed, the actors remain flat and emotionless. No one does stonefaced aggressiveness like Tommy Lee Jones and though his words ar never shouted, the harsh sadness and anger behind each is beyond resonant.

Barry Pepper as Mike is really the only character given to histrionics but like the rest of the cast, it's the croaky, whispered moments that make the most noise. As Mike makes his forced march across the desert at the barrel of Pete's old style six shooter the journey becomes as much Mike as Pete's or as the late Mel's. Is Mike redeemed by this forced journey? That is for you to discover by watching Barry Pepper's haunting, mesmerizing performance.

Though set in modern day America, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada evokes the old west of Peckinpah and Leoni in it's burnt out desert browns and oranges. Picturesque scenery covered in layers of blood and dirt that only old west milieus can convey. This is as beautiful looking a film as it is well acted and moving.

There is another aspect of this story that few people want to comment on. An undercurrent of homoeroticism that is actually quite common in supposedly macho movies bubbles beneath the surface of this manly tale of revenge. Though Pete indulges in an affair with a local married waitress well played by Melissa Leo, it becomes clear that Melquiades is his one and only love. Now neither man would even admit or act upon it, but the bond between the two men, especially expressed after Mel's death, is deeper than Pete can deal with out loud.

There are many layers to peel away while experiencing this intense revenge fantasy. Layers of pain, heartbreak, denial and redemption. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is a treasure trove of subtext and of visual artistry. A truly must see picture for anyone who loves movies.

Movie Review: Crank 2 High Voltage

Crank 2 High Voltage (2009) 

Directed Neveldine and Taylor 

Written by Neveldine and Taylor

Starring Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Bai Ling, Dwight Yoakam

Release Date April 17th, 2009 

Published April 19th, 2009 

Warning: This review gives away the final image of the new movie Crank 2: High Voltage. If for some misguided reason you want to see this excremental awfulness in theaters, unspoiled, you may want to wait to read this review. I don't recommend you see this movie at all so keep reading.

The final image of the new action disaster Crank 2: High Voltage is star Jason Statham on fire flipping the middle finger to the audience. Standing with the skin burning and peeling away from his bullet like skull, Statham's Chev Chelios finds the strength to extend his middle finger and smile in one last salute to an audience that has already wasted more than 80 minutes of their precious lives and 8 to 12 of their precious dollars.

For co-directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor this is what passes for clever and or subversive. Just don't confuse it for entertaining boys. Then again, I am sure that was never your intention. The fact is Neveldine and Taylor, juvenile pranksters that they are, approach Crank 2 not unlike Tom Green approached Freddy Got Fingered, not as a privelege to be able to make a movie but as a licence to see how far the moneyed class will let them go in spreading filth all over film screens.

In that instance Neveldine and Taylor are heedless. They dive headlong into the idea of being allowed to do whatever they want onscreen. From disturbing violence, a man cuts off his own nipples, to outright pornography, Statham's Chev Chelios has sex with his girlfriend played by Amy Smart in graphic fashion on a horse racing track, in front of a cheering crowd. Amy Smart, I'm sure your parents are very proud of you today.

The naughty bits are pixellated during the sex scenes, the one likely nod to studio oversight. But the nipple thing, that was OK. Now, as I write this I can imagine Neveldine and Taylor giggling like school children. Why? Because this kind of puritanical reaction is just what they were hoping for. However, when even someone as liberal as myself is offended by a movie it says something.

So what is the value of making a movie with the intent to offend? Provocative for the sake of provocative is something akin to making a movie inside a vacuum. Like filming an inside joke. I am certain that Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor are somewhere laughing. The rest of us I gather got what we were intended to get from Crank 2 in that final image.

Movie Review Hollywood Homicide

Hollywood Homicide (2003) 

Directed by Ron Shelton

Written by Ron Shelton

Starring Harrison Ford, Josh Hartnett, Master P, Lena Olin, Bruce Greenwood, Isaiah Washington, Keith David, Dwight Yoakam, Martin Landau

Release Date June 13th, 2003 

Published June 12th, 2003 

Every time I complain about a film’s marketing campaign I get emails asking me why I complain about something that has nothing to do with the film. I politely disagree with that sentiment. A film’s marketing shapes your perception and the movie Hollywood Homicide is an excellent example of my feelings. The ad campaign of the film is accompanied by a rap soundtrack that is not only misleading, it's misguided. That aside, and despite his aging demographic, Ford shows in Hollywood Homicide that he's still got that magical IT quality that makes a superstar.

In Hollywood Homicide Harrison Ford is Joe Gavilan, real estate agent by day, Hollywood homicide cop at night. His young partner is KC Calden (Josh Hartnett), who is also a part-time yoga instructor and wannabe actor. The two are brought in to investigate the murder of an up and coming rap group in a LA nightclub owned by Julius (Master P). In one of the film’s funniest moments, Joe takes time out from the investigation to pitch Julius about a house he has for sale. The murder sets the plot in motion but there is something else going on in this film.

In most cop movies, we would track from the evidence that implies the rap groups record company owner killed them for trying to break their contract. Isaiah Washington fills that vaguely Suge Knightish role. However at some point in the making of Hollywood Homicide, director Ron Shelton forgot about this by-the-numbers plot and fell in love with his quirky characters. Lucky for him, these are great characters and even better actors playing them.

As the murder plot becomes merely a subplot, it's the weird friendship between Ford and Hartnett that takes center stage and the two actors show an excellent chemistry. Ford also has a subplot with the wife of one of his fellow LAPD detectives, who also happens to be working for the bad guys. Lena Olin fills the role of Ford's love interest and brings a mature sexuality to what could have been a throwaway role. There are a couple of strands of plot also working throughout Hollywood Homicide, such as Dwight Yoakam as a dirty former cop working for Isaiah Washington and his connection to the murder of Hartnett's father. Yet again, such plot machinations are merely background for the actors.

The film’s ending is a car wreck, literally and figuratively. The figurative car wreck is the number of unresolved plot points that are simply thrown away or disregarded. Bruce Greenwood in particular gets the short shrift as his character arc is resolved with little notice to the audience as to why or how. Not that it made any difference to the plot but it didn't fit any kind of logic. You can tell a lot of this subplot was left on the cutting room floor. In fact, from the messy narrative that is on display, I would bet the director’s cut must have been just over three hours just to explain the extraneous plot points..

You can speculate for hours as to what happened during the filming of Hollywood Homicide that brought it to it's current state. Despite my praise of the film’s leads and its humor, the film is a real mess from a plot standpoint. One could wonder if the obvious allusions to Suge Knight in Isaiah Washington's character caused that character to be cut back a good deal. You can see many of the cop movie cliches fighting to surface and Shelton seemed to make a very pronounced effort to downplay those cliches. He leaves the film’s big action movie moments until the end of the film and focuses on the films strengths, it's actors and the humor they generate from their interaction.

That doesn't make the film feel any less messy but it makes it far more tolerable than it might have been. -

Movie Review Panic Room

Panic Room (2002) 

Directed by David Fincher

Written by David Koepp 

Starring Jodie Foster, Kristen Stewart, Forrest Whitaker, Jared Leto, Dwight Yoakam

Release Date March 29th, 2002 

Published March 28th, 2002 

David Fincher is my favorite director. For the uninitiated, Fincher is the brilliant eye behind the lens of Fight Club and Seven, two stylishly violent, high voltage thrillers that pair catchy visuals with blistering commentary on our consumer culture. Fincher's new film, Panic Room, doesn't aspire to social commentary, it's just a straight edge thriller easy to enjoy as long as you don't expect too much from it.

Panic Room stars Jodie Foster as Meg Altman, a divorcee raising a teen daughter (Kristen Stewart) and looking for a new home. A real estate agent shows Meg a gorgeous New York brownstone. 3-stories, multiple bedrooms, single bath, cable ready, and oh yeah there is this little room built by the ultra-paranoid former tenant. This room is essentially a safe built for a human being, with two feet of cement encasing two feet of steel on each side of the 6 by 10 foot area. 

The panic room is meant to keep the owner safe from a break in. Needless to say Meg and her daughter move in immediately and on their first night there is a break in, forcing Meg and her daughter to put the panic room to use. Unfortunately for Meg, the men behind the break in, Junior (Jared Leto), Burnham (Forest Whitaker) and Raoul (Dwight Yoakam, yes Dwight Yoakam playing a guy named Raoul), need to get into the panic room to get what they came for.

The first half of Panic Room encompasses the character introductions, and explores the space of the panic room and it's very good. Director David Fincher's camera helps build suspense through shadow and light. The props go to Oscar winner Conrad W. Hall's Cinematography as well for giving the apartment and the titular panic room dimension, we want a strong sense of the space and we get that while also ramping up tension between the thieves and our innocent mom and daughter duo. 

Once Meg and her daughter are inside the panic room, the film begins to lose steam. There are still a few good moments but the attempts by the gang to get inside the panic room are right out of MacGyver's playbook as are Meg's attempts to thwart them. It is those MacGyver-like logical leaps like Meg's figuring out how to hook up the panic room’s phone line and Burnham’s oh so lucky guess as to what she's doing that border on the ridiculous. That scene, amongst others, undermines the tension and kills some of the suspense.

Still, Panic Room is not a bad movie. Jodie Foster is good in a very difficult role that seems the least defined of all of the characters. Each of the bad guys is able to communicate their motives and personalities in their interaction with each other while Foster's only interaction for most of the film is her daughter, which is confined to being the protective mother. Forest Whitaker and Jared Leto have good chemistry as a team but Dwight Yoakam seems woefully miscast as Raoul, the supposed intimidator who is more laughable than imposing. 

Visually, Fincher is very much on his game, with unique camera work and one of the most visually interesting credit sequences I've ever seen. Be forewarned: if you have a problem with motion sickness you may want to bring some medicine because Fincher's camera rolling through walls and windows and flying through keyholes and air ducts can be somewhat jarring.

Movie Review: Crank

Crank (2006) 

Directed by Neveldine and Taylor

Written by Neveldine and Taylor

Starring Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Dwight Yoakam, Erfren Ramirez 

Release Date September 1st, 2006 

Published August 31st, 2006

Jason Statham is right up there with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in the competition to replace the old guard action hero's; Stallone, Van Damme and Schwarznegger. With his two Transporter flicks; Statham established his badass credentials. All that Statham lacks is the easy charisma and sense of humor that The Rock is gifted with. In his latest flick Crank, Statham delivers yet another badass performance but the highly adrenalized Crank also exposes Statham's weaknesses as much as his strengths.

Hitman Chev Chelios (Statham) is having a truly awful morning. He has awakened from one nightmare into another as he finds that he has been killed in his sleep. A rival hitman, Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo), has dosed Chev with a poison called the Beijing cocktail. This poison will slowly snake through Chev's system until it shuts down his heart.

According to his doctor (Dwight Yoakam); Chev has maybe an hour to live unless he can keep his heart rate very high. What Chev needs are massive amounts of adrenaline in whatever way he can get it. Dying a slow death either way; Chev vows to stay alive long enough to say goodbye to his clueless girlfriend Eve (Amy Smart) and to kill Verona and all of his henchman.

Written and directed by the team of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, Crank is pure trash, B picture exploitation. Reminiscent of a pair of 2006 chase pictures with similarly lowbrow ambition, Tyrese's Waist Deep and Paul Walker's Running Scared, Crank gets a running start and pauses only for tacky sex scenes and overblown violence.

Crank sets itself apart from the others with a pair of humiliating sex scenes that take the career of poor Amy Smart an flush it down the B movie toilet. In the first of two scenes Smart is raped on the streets of L.A's Chinatown. I say raped, the scene begins as a rape but to make the scene more mortifying she begins to enjoy and participate willingly. Later as Chev's heart begins to slow during a chase scene, Smart's character performs oral sex while Statham drives and shoots bad guys.

Smart is not the only woman treated with little regard in Crank, merely the best known. All other women seen in Crank are dressed in next to nothing and placed in plastic cubes where they are ogled by bad guys. The film also takes time to rip gays and make stereotypical use of its few African American characters. Neveldine and Talyor, I'm sure, would say they are merely being politically incorrect, tweaking the conventions of the masses and other such justifications. That would be interesting if it served a metaphoric purpose; but Crank is just a violent, exploitation chase picture, it lacks the depth to defend its anti-PC attitude.

There is no denying the badass appeal of star Jason Statham. With his bullet shaped head and intense gaze, he is beyond intimidating. Unfortunately, when forced to get to the core of a character -beyond the act of simply killing a man- he is an empty vessel. He is all physicality and no mentality. Statham in Crank is an unstoppable killing machine who takes on an occasional bit of black humor and wit but mostly is just a machine pushed by the plot toward his next violent encounter.

Crank has a visceral power to it that comes from it's propellant plot. That power however, is dissipated by the directors need to be shocking and crude. The two high speed sex scenes in Crank are gratuitous and though the plot tries to makes them seem necessary that does not change their exploitative nature. Watching Amy Smart in these scenes should be titillating; she is a very attractive woman. Rather than titillating however, I felt nothing but pity for Smart who is made to look like an even less willing version of Chloe Sevigny in The Brown Bunny.

Is Jason Statham the next great action hero? The box office will determine that. Myself? I'll take The Rock whose combination of physicality and humor is the perfect combination of action hero violence and wit. Statham is not unappealing; he simply lacks range. Watching Crank you can barely make out any differences between Chev Chelios and the character Statham played in two The Transporter movies.