Sony Pictures
As soon as I sat down to watch Miss Bala, I immediately wanted to go home. It was ten o’clock at night, I had my large root beer and I was ready to tackle this movie. As time passed, I found myself regretting that I was there. I wasn’t looking forward to the movie since the trailer did not impress me and the fact that this movie comes out over Super Bowl weekend, when everyone is busy, also concerned me. It didn’t look original or exciting at all, but I went still went and saw.
Miss Bala stars Gina Rodriguez as a young makeup artist who travels to Tijuana, Mexico to assist her friend in a beauty contest. While attending a club one night, she is caught in the crossfire of a shootout and is abducted. She loses her friend along the way and in order to get her back, she must follow all the rules given to her by Lino, the head of the drug cartel she is captured by. She must use her strength and inventiveness to survive and save her friend.
Miss Bala wasn’t an outstanding film, but it wasn’t terrible either. I sat at the theater late at night not really expressing any emotions towards the film. After it was over, I headed home and went to bed and didn’t really think much about it. There were things I liked about the film, like Gina Rodriguez, but it felt like something I have seen before.
Gina Rodriguez was easily the best thing about this movie. She turned out a great performance in last year’s Annihilation alongside Natalie Portman. She is given a lot to do in this movie and she is tasked with many life threating moments. She had to prove her innocence to the DEA as well as keeping the drug cartel calm, so they don’t suspect her as a mole. Rodriguez was believable in role as someone who must make many drastic decisions.
The film never does much to make it feel different than other movies. The structure of the film felt basic. It was the classic set up of the characters, providing them with a connection to a supporting character, putting her into a deadly situation, and she must fight to survive. The film feels comfortable with being rudimentary. The character relationships, situations, and event the action scenes all felt borrowed from other movies in this genre.
The supporting cast is decent with Lino, played by Ismael Cruz Cordova, getting a lot of screen time. I wasn’t sure if the film was secretly trying to build a romance between Lino and Gloria because at times, he was being oddly sweet to her. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they did write the two as a couple later in the film, but they didn’t, and I am happy with that. There was also an attempt at building a backstory for the ruthless drug cartel leader to make him more sympathetic, but it came off as forced most of the time. Anthony Mackie is briefly in the film, but his character never feels important because of his limited screen time. They could have hired anyone else to fill in that role and it would have worked just the same.
There were plenty of action scenes in the movie ranging from shootouts to car chases. Director Catherine Hardwicke handles them with care and provides a lot of suspenseful moments throughout. The best things about the action scenes was seeing how Gloria would react to the situation and try to survive. As the movie progressed, Gloria became smarter when it came towards trying to outsmart Lino and his crew.
Miss Bala felt like something I have seen before, but it was carried by a great performance from Gina Rodriguez. Sony is known for making films that feel familiar to other films and this is just another film pumped out by the company that won’t impress many people.
Miss Bala has a run time of 1 hour 43 minutes and is rated PG-13 for sequences of gun violence, sexual and drug content, thematic material, and language.
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