THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA — ** 1/2 — Tommy Lee Jones, Barry Pepper, Julio Cesar Cedillo; rated R (profanity, violence, gore, sex, brief nudity, racial epithets, vulgarity, brief drugs).

"The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" recalls other cinematic Western tales, including Clint Eastwood's Oscar-winning revenge-thriller "Unforgiven" and John Sayles' trenchant mystery "Lone Star."

And it has a story element in common with "Weekend at Bernie's."

Obviously, this unusual buddy picture — which marks the feature-filmmaking debut of Tommy Lee Jones — is bound to pale in comparison to Eastwood and Sayles' films, which are arguable classics of the genre.

On the other hand, it's miles better than "Weekend at Bernie's."

"The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" features some solid, if not spectacular, performances, as well as a bizarre and dark sense of humor — which come in handy when the film starts meandering and runs out of steam.

The title character is a Mexican immigrant (Julio Cesar Cedillo) who is shot and killed by Mike Norton (Barry Pepper), an overzealous border patrol officer. So Mike's bosses work with local police, including Sheriff Belmont (Dwight Yoakam), to handle the potentially racially dividing investigation.

They appear to be ready to cover up the incident. But Mel's best friend, veteran rancher Pete Perkins (Jones), won't let it go. He's determined make sure his friend is given the burial he deserves. So when Pete finds out the truth, he kidnaps Mike and forces him to make the journey across the Texas-Mexico border, toting Mel's rapidly decomposing corpse.

Screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga has already explored this "fractured narrative" structure in both "Amores Perros" and "21 Grams." And this story is so overstuffed with characters that it can't possibly follow all of their story "arcs" to logical conclusions. (When Yoakam's duty-bound sheriff disappears in the second half, he's sorely missed.)

Jones' direction is as low-key as his acting style. The usually one-note Pepper does seem to have fun once his character becomes hysterical.

"The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" is rated R for frequent use of strong sexual profanity, some strong scenes of violence (shootings, racially motivated beatings and an animal attack), some gore, simulated sex and other sexual contact (and glimpses of pornographic movie footage), brief female nudity, use of a few racial epithets and some crude sexual slang terms, and some brief drug content (references). Running time: 116 minutes.

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