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Famed Christian writer, recording artist, and actor Pat Boone thinks Brokeback Mountain has killed the genre of the Western. "One of our country's finest exports for 75 years, the dramatic story where lonely heroes fight desperate but victorious battles, where the good guys always win and the desperadoes get what they deserve, has been dealt a possibly fatal wound." He says he saw his friend Denzel Washington "cringe" when he announced that Brokeback won the Golden Globe for Best Film.

Boone can stop worrying. Brokeback hasn't broken anything.

Despite the hype, which characterizes Ang Lee's "gay cowboy movie" as a celebration and affirmation of homosexuality, the story is something altogether different. The two gay characters, Jack and Ennis, live frustrating and unfulfilled lives, mainly due to their own rash decisions and devastating lies. One rushes the other into drunken sex, which sparks an obsession that later disrupts the traditional American families—read: marriages and children—that they have developed.

Their preoccupation with meeting for sexual rendezvous makes liars and cheaters out of both of them, and wreaks havoc on their families. Defenders of the film blame a repressive society, and clearly the hatred and bigotry of others make a bad situation worse. But it's obvious that Jack and Ennis bear a great deal of responsibility for their distressing predicament. There are so many varieties of sin at work in Brokeback Mountain that discerning viewers will come away feeling broken-hearted for everyone—the lonely and tormented men, the deceived and betrayed wives, and the children who lack honest fathers.

But there are other reasons that Boone should quit worrying about the state of the Western. Dramas about gay people haven't killed the drama; romantic comedies about gay people haven't ruined the romantic comedy. And if Boone looked around at the other films playing alongside Brokeback Mountain in theaters, he'd find another internationally acclaimed film full of big hats, dusty horses, loaded guns, and love of the heterosexual kind. Not only that, it's a great film that pays tribute to the rugged Westerns of the past, and to the great Christian storyteller Flannery O'Connor.

Tommy Lee Jones' directorial debut, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, is indeed about two guys in cowboy hats who are close friends. When the younger gentleman, a Mexican alien named Melquiades Estrada (Julio Cesar Cedillo), is shot, the other—an aging, irascible fellow named Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones)—determines to find the shooter and deliver some good old-fashioned justice.

The justice, well, he'll have to take care of that on his own. The killer turns out to be Mike Horton (Barry Pepper), a jittery and violent new member of the Texas Border Patrol, who just arrived in the area with his young wife Lou Ann (January Jones). The local police would rather just bury the corpse and forget about the whole thing, reprimanding Horton with some strong words. But that's not enough for Perkins. So he nabs Horton and drags him down to Mexico with plans to teach him a lesson.

What follows is as hot and dusty as it is rough and bloody. The farther Pete goes in punishing Mike, the more viewers will wonder if he's entirely sane. After all, there's a third passenger on this journey—Estrada's corpse. And Perkins may find that these two fellow travelers are too much to handle.

Jones proves to be a remarkable director, drawing memorable performances from Pepper, Jones, and co-stars Melissa Leo and Dwight Yoakam. Screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga (Amores Perros, 21 Grams) develops all of his characters into convincing and unpredictable human beings. And together they weave hard-as-nails, Peckinpah-style violence together with a wicked sense of humor, some rewarding insights into human nature, and imagery that radiates desert heat. While Jones's unflinching portrayal of violence and sexual misbehavior makes this a film for discerning viewers only, it also deserves praise as one of the first significant works of cinematic art released in 2006.

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March (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50