by MATTHEW HAYS

There’s always a degree of queasiness that accompanies the announcement that an actor wants to direct. After all, there are the cinematic traumas left behind by Kevin Spacey and Sally Field to give us pause.

But Tommy Lee Jones—one of America’s greatest screen actors—has created a superb directorial debut with The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, an offbeat and entirely affecting film set along the U.S.-Mexico border. Jones’s intelligence as an actor has clearly translated to his position in the director’s chair as well. He understands the importance of script. After screening some of the work of Guillermo Arriaga—whose credits include Amores perros and 21 Grams—Jones invited the scribe to his Texas ranch, where the two dined. As Arriaga tells it, the two became friends, discussed a few different ideas, and he set about to write the screenplay for Three Burials.

Arriaga fans will recognize the thematic territory and will be pleased. Jones has the starring role, playing a seasoned West Texas rancher who strikes up a friendship with an illegal migrant worker (Julio Cesar Cedillo). After the worker is mistakenly shot and killed by a racist border patrolman (Barry Pepper), Jones is devastated to find that local police appear to be taking the death in stride, seeming not to care about the death of this “wetback.” Infuriated by their lack of commitment to the case, when Jones learns that Pepper is responsible, he kidnaps him and heads across the desert, back to Mexico, where he intends to bury the corpse of his dead friend.

While Jones has cited Godard, Kurosawa and Peckinpah as influences, Three Burials reminded me a bit of Stephen Frears’ excellent desert stand-off movie The Hit (1984). Jones was certainly smart in seeking collaboration with Arriaga. This film, as it turns out, was inspired by a true incident: In 1997, a U.S. border guard, employed to keep illegal Mexican migrants out of America, shot a young American-Latino citizen dead. While an investigation ensued, no one was ever charged or held responsible. Critics charged that the shooting of the innocent Esequiel Hernandez Jr. was indicative of a border patrol completely out of control, of a system that was too often soaked in racist attitudes towards Mexicans. Jones was infuriated by the event, which has served as the launch point for Arriaga’s screenplay.

The clear passion Jones feels for this material, and the incident that inspired it, can be felt throughout Three Burials. Arriaga’s adept handling of themes like racism, infidelity, fate and death are all intact, married to Jones’s fury about the casual attitude the border patrol has towards Mexican life. Jones and Arriaga have accomplished a rare and precious thing here: They have woven an inspired-by-a-true-story screenplay into a poetic film. Make The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada the next film you see.

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada opens Friday, March 10

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