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Struggling to choose a movie at the local video store, I decided to check out this movie which I had never heard of before starring Tommy Lee Jones and Barry Piper.

This movie is set in modern day Texas near the Mexican border. It deals with the themes of illegal immigration, friendship, justice and life in the backwaters of the United States of America.

The body of Melquiades - an illegal Mexican immigrant - is discovered in a shallow grave in the desert. Local authorities refuse to investigate the circumstances of Melquiades death, and quickly bury him much to the annoyance of local ranch foreman Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee) - a good friend of Melquiades.

On discovering that Border Patrolman Mike Norton was responsible for Melquiades death, and having promised to bury the latter at his home town in the event of his death, Pete takes matters into his own hands, forcing Mike at gunpoint to help him transport the body to his hometown in Mexico. What follows is a race over harsh terrain with the Border Patrol to beat them across the border and find Melquiades’ home town. The movie shifts between scenes of the chase and the circumstances of Melquiades' death, with the latter not being totally satisfactory in terms of execution and circumstance.

While the movie is very much a drama, one starts to wonder about its real intent when it comes to some of the scenes involving the transportation of Melquiades' corpse. In one scene, Pete forces Mike to sleep near Melquiades exposed corpse, which in itself is distasteful, but becomes almost funny after an unforeseen problem with an exposed corpse emerges. It’s at these moments that the movie risks becoming a comedy in the mould of Weekend at Bernies even though this is not the intention.

The slow pace of the movie conveys the slow nature of the small border town and surrounding region very well. Characters often sit in contemplation of events, while others, such as Mike's wife, struggle to cope with boredom, leading to unexpected behaviours. However, the movie may be simply too slow for the majority of people.

While Lee Jones makes a good fist of portraying Pete, the end result is somewhat mixed, partly because the character is a murky combination of conflicting emotions. While one wants to like Pete for his determination to stand up for his friend and justice, he at times makes questionable decisions, while some of his actions are troubling. Perhaps this simply demonstrates that humans naturally face a range of conflicting positive and negative emotions when dealing with death. Nonetheless, the effect is that the character comes through less forceful on the screen.

Perhaps the largest weakness of the movie is that it fails to fully flesh out the links between the various characters. For instance, we are not given any compelling reasons for why Pete was such good friends with Melquiades. There was surely scope to further flesh out these links, while the issue of illegal immigration – a hot topic of debate in the United States at the moment – could have been examined in more detail.

In short, the concept behind this movie is interesting, but ultimately falls short in terms of execution.

I picked this up even though i was a little hesitant given the lukewarm reviews it has been receiving. I enjoy playing golf in real life so was looking for something that is more of a simulation and TW PGA Tour has a pretty good reputation, though i have not played previous versions. Wii sports golf is very enjoyable but ultimately lacks depth.

I've had time now to play through two complete rounds and can give some initial comments.

The swing mechanic takes some getting used to in terms of how far back to swing the remote and learning to hold it level to prevent hooks or slices. It seems that if you take the remote too far back (i.e. as if you are simulating a real life golf swing) the remote can sometimes think you have swung forward - resulting in a weak shot before you have swung down. In frustration I ended up checking out the following video on youtube of someone from EA demonstrating the game. Basically they were only using about half of a regular golf swing to achieve a full power shot. Furthermore, they were using only one had, perhaps because it is easier to judge the pace and get your timing right (timing your movements in conjunction with the on-screen avatar plays an important role in achieving a perfect shot). Anyway I adopted this approach and have had much better results in terms of consistency. Some people looking for a simulation might therefore be disappointed with this "limited" implementation of the swing mechanic.

Encouraged by my improvement, I started trying draw and fade shots but have encountered some difficulties. Generally you twist the remote prior to your back swing in the direction you want to the ball to curve. For example, you twist the remote counter clock wise to hit a draw shot, but i just could not get it to work consistently. In fact, i had to twist the remote clockwise slightly in order to get it to work, which is counter- intuitive (it should produce a slice). Perhaps i am somehow over-compensating for the twisted position during my swing, or there may be an issue with my remote, or there is an issue with the swing mechanic that needs ironing out.

Another concern was the aiming mechanic. Basically you hold down the a button to zoom in on the target which shows where your shot will end up if you execute it properly. You then press the b button to grab the target and move it around. Unfortunately using the Wii remote can be a little tricky when you only want to make minor adjustments to the target - the target has a tendency to not move with small movements of the remote and float around (since its hard to keep your hand steady, especially if you drink as much coffee as me). This is important because the game does require some fairly precise aiming at times given some narrow fairways and slippery and small greens.

One good thing about the aiming mechanic it that it does force you to work out the best approach for a shot given the specific characteristics of the club, and the relative height from where you are hitting the ball compared to your target. For example, the target shows where the ball will end up if you hit it with 100 per cent power in a straight direction. If you take a 2 iron which has a relatively low trajectory and long roll, you need to be careful that there are no obstacles directly before the target. Furthermore, if you are hitting towards a target that is well below from where you are hitting, you may need to take a shorter club since the ball will naturally travel further before hitting the ground. In short, there is more thinking required about shot selection and execution.

The game does have a nice selection of courses some of which can be challenging, which is precisely what i was looking for. There is inevitably some things to learn when playing through a course for the first time in terms best ball position, significant variations in terrain height etc. So far i got 4 over on my first full round on standard difficulty and then even par in my second round.

There are a nice variety of play modes as well. At the moment I'm playing through the PGA Tour Season mode where you create your own character and play through five years of events. Actual tournaments are spread over four rounds just like the real thing, which is a nice change from Wii Sports limited number of holes. Completing rounds and making certain achievements (e.g., longest drive) improves ther various attributes of your avatar (e.g., power, accuracy, spin etc).

The graphics are nice and realistic though i have not compared them to the other console versions, and Wii sports probably has crisper visuals.

There are some other minor niggles. For instance, you cant save the game during rounds and cannot change the club selection in you bag. From reading comments from users of previous versions, there are some elements such as the club bag selection that appear to have been left out from the Wii version. This combined with the niggles in the swing mechanic suggests that the game has been somewhat rushed.

In conclusion, TW PGA Tour 2007 is good game but with significant scope for improvement. In particular the swing mechanic could be more smoothly and robustly implemented. It is not helped by an instruction manual which is poor at explaining the swing mechanic and other features of the game, and a somewhat cumbersome interface. Nonetheless, once you struggle through the initial learning cure you find a rewarding and deep golf game that currently has no equivalent on the Wii. Sinking long putts and nailing shots close to the pin are great fun. In short, i am happy with my purchase. If future versions significantly improve on this version i might trade it in, but this should keep me occupied and satisfied in the meantime.