I admire the purity of The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, and enjoyed it immensely, both in spite of a language barrier and because of it. Director and star Tommy Lee Jones didn't go for the easy out, there.Many other mainstream Hollywood filmmakers would probably have sold out and gone with entirely English language dialogue, which would have reduced the value of this film significantly, in my opinion. We have to understand the settings and the relationships between the characters to really appreciate this one, and Hollywoodizing it would defeat that, or cheapen it. Personally, I do not speak Spanish and can understand only a little, and I expected to struggle with this one.Ironically, I found myself liking the film anyway.That's a tribute to the story, the acting, and the film making. After all, when you like a movie even without fully understanding about half the dialogue - well, that's a good movie! Meanwhile, I've since picked up the DVD, mostly for the subtitles, for repeated viewing. With all due respect to the folks here at Cinema Now, who did not invent the Windows Media Player, each listing here should probably carry language and subtitling information since WMP doesn't support subtitles very well unless they are native to the source material. With that said, I think this is worth the purchase anyway because the film is strong enough to carry itself, no matter what language the viewer speaks (or doesn't). It is all about character exploration, human loyalties and human failings, the joys and dangers of self discovery.An excellent job by Mr. Jones and cast. A keeper.
A beautiful, powerful, and compelling story.So far, every movie that Tommy Lee Jones has directed has been a big hit in my book.