The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

This extraordinary film has won both the Prix d'interprétation masculine and the Prix du scenario at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, which concludes today. It is an unforgettable parable about honour and redemption. Guillermo Arriaga, the Mexican screenwriter also responsible for Amores Peros and 21 Grams, builds up a powerful story of what it means to be a man, perfectly played out against the starkly beautiful backdrop of the American-Mexican border country. This is the first film directed by Tommy Lee Jones, who also leads as the no nonsense Pete Perkins. He has done a terrific job, as have Barry Pepper and Julio Cedilo in support. January Jones is just plain yummy and very good as the bored, young wife of Barry Pepper’s rookie border patrol guard. The film has some moments of surreal madness, some involving a dead body, ants and a few litres of anti-freeze, but at its heart its an honest and closely studied drama with an ending that is uplifting and inspiring.

The Da Vinci Code

I think the biggest problem that the movie of The Da Vinci Code is facing is that too many people have read the book. This must be a fantastically exciting film for the three or four people who do not already know the outcome. For the rest of us it can be no more than a very good visualisation of a route that we have already travelled. It is very well made and well acted. It is true to the book in almost every detail. As for the so called controversy surrounding the content and the hand-wringing going on in some religious circles, can I just say: please grow up. This is a work of fiction. It has never pretended to be anything else. The fact that it makes reference to events that actually occurred and locations and things that actually exist make it no less a work of fiction. It is in fact no more than a sophisticated version of those childrens’ stories that end with a reference to something in real life: “….and so to this day all water buck have a white ring around their bottoms.” Making reference to an undeniable fact does not make the story that the original water buck sat in a pot of white paint true.

American Dreamz

I laughed out loud a number of times at this satire, which is more than I can say for most comedic fare. I am, of course, a great Hugh Grant fan and here he reprises the role of loveable SOB at which he is unsurpassed. Dennis Quaid is also great in the role of the Bush-like US President. This may lack the ironic bite and viciousness of really good satire, but it’s good fun. Its an equal opportunity piss-taker, lampooning terrorist organisations as much as it does Bush and TV talent shows. It’s written and directed by Paul Weitz, who brought us the wildly funny American Pie series and the excellent About A Boy, another perfect Hugh Grant vehicle

MI-3

Undeniably enjoyable, but these big action movies really have more in common with theme park thrill rides and computer games then actual movies. Sure there is a plot and it hangs together in MI3 better than most. There are some credible moments of good acting, notably Philip Seymour Hoffman as a truly chilling, soulless villain. He is so much better an actor than Tom Cruise that the movie would have benefited from giving him more screen time. I am not a great Cruise fan, and consider him one of the most over-rated actors in the business, but there is no denying that he does this sort of thing very well. It’s all a lot of fun and the rabbit’s foot is a delightful MacGuffin (Hitchcock’s term for a meaningless object that serves only to advance the plot).