Tommy Lee Jones’ 2005 western Underseen got a perfect score from Roger Ebert

Tommy Lee Jones is arguably one of the best actors of all timeespecially when it comes to playing pragmatic justice dealers. It’s fitting, then, that his 2005 debut, “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” (or “Three Burials”), is a Western with a strong moral code. The film is not as well known as the others the great westerns of all timebut it received a perfect rating from Roger Ebert, and that carries weight.

“Three Burials” sees Jones play a ranch hand named Pete Perkins. After his best friend, the eponymous Melquiades Estrada (Julia Cesar Cedillo), is shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent (Barry Pepper), Pete kidnaps the attacker, digs up the body, and sets off on a trip to Mexico. His goal? Bury his friend in the place he requested. Jones’ film (written by Guillermo Arriaga) isn’t a traditional tale of vengeance or justice — you know, the kind where the wronged unleash bloody vengeance against a wrongdoer. It’s more nuanced than that, which is why Ebert loved it. In his own words:

“‘The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada’ tells the kind of story that John Huston or Sam Peckinpah might have wanted to film. It begins with a foundation of loyalty and honor between men, and mixes it with a little madness. In an age when hundreds of lives are casually destroyed in action films, here is an entire film in which one life is honored and one death is avenged.”

Ebert also noted that “Three Burials” is a story about the poetic side of justice, comparing it to Peckinpah’s “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.” (Both films notably deal with characters traveling with corpses.) However, it also reminds him of tales written by one of the Western genre’s most acclaimed authors.

One of Tommy Lee Jones’ most famous performances occurs in the “No Country for Old Men” by the Coen Brothers based on Cormac McCarthy’s book of the same name. It’s another story of tough men crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, and fans of the film and its source material will likely appreciate the slow, elegiac nature of “Three Burials.” Regardless, Ebert compared Jones’ neo-western to one of the author’s other acclaimed horse operas:

“The journey and its ending will involve more discoveries and more surprises; it passes through the same kinds of doomed landscapes we imagine when we read Cormac McCarthy’s ‘Blood Meridian.’ two together without getting exactly four.

Like “Blood Meridian,” the film’s story is a grueling journey through dark terrains in which the characters face moral trials. Without getting into spoilers, the aforementioned Border Patrol agent is forced to pay for some of his previous transgressions and own up to his sins, which adds an element of revenge to the narrative. The film isn’t as brutal as “Blood Meridian,” mind you, but the two stories share enough similarities to complement each other.

If you’re looking for a shoot’em up western, this isn’t the movie for you. However, if you’re looking for something more contemplative that serves justice in a different way, “Three Burials” is essential viewing.