7.3/10
This definitely wasn't as bad as I thought it might be (it looked predictable). But I am a sucker for cartel topic films.
This DEFINITELY was not predictable. There were multiple plot twists that would make you lean one way, only to rip you away. The plot was well done, if not a little weakened by poor dialogue. Ismael did a wonderful job portraying a manipulative gang leader, and was the best character from my perspective. Most other characters were forgettable besides him.
Overall, I enjoyed the film and would recommend it if you are looking for something to watch that isn't boring, but not too involved either.
oh yes i like... partly hardboiled mafia movie of Mexican drugs syndicat. the movie has an entertaining plot and consistently good tension. my biggest compliment goes to Gina Rodriguez, unknown to me until now!
She gave an incredibly authentic performance! every facial expression every shape in the eyes every tremor on the body you trust her like for real life!! great!! this is entertainment!!! don't let other stupid comments stop you from enjoying this flick [8/10]
A Mexican drug cartel kidnaps a Mexican-American makeup artist and forces her to... join a beauty contest ?
The rest of Miss Bala is an exercise in alpha male machismo where the misguided writer makes the most victimized woman his female lead, naively believing this means his film is feminist.
Miss Bala is not only an insult to all women, it is also an insult to beauty pageants, which is not an easy achievement.
I suspect the original film was better. While the remake is okay, it's a functional outing with little to make it stand out amongst others of its kind.
From director Catherine Hardwicke comes Miss Bala, an American remake of a Mexican crime thriller. While clubbing with a friend in Tijuana, Gloria Fuentes is kidnapped by a drug cartel and forced to work for them to get her missing friend back. Gina Rodriguez gives a rather weak performance and the plot is pretty ridiculous. Still, there are some good action scenes and a fair amount of suspense. While it’s entertaining and has a bit of intrigue, Miss Bala is a formulaic action film that’s been done a hundred times before.
"Meh" is the perfect rating for this movie. It is entirely mediocre in every way. The plot makes no sense, the (surprisingly few) action beats aren't super exciting, character motivations (what characters motivations)? are unclear at best and non-existent at worse. At several key parts, the movie struggles with what story it's actually trying to tell, and who we are supposed to sympathise with. I don't mean that in a deep, meaningful, thought provoking way. Whoever wrote the script just couldn't make up their mind.
Overall, it's serviceable and a good background watch. I'm lucky with how much I like Gina Rodriguez, otherwise this would have been worse and I would have scored it lower. Glad I didn't see it in cinemas, but don't regret watching it on VOD.
I didn't like the movie. That first half was really slow and I just ended up never empathizing with the main character at all. It felt like it was suppose to be an action, thriller, and drama and I think the only thing it succeeded in was drama. Everything else felt lukewarm.
Review by wolfkinBlockedParent2019-02-04T05:55:31Z— updated 2023-04-09T02:33:39Z
Alright so how to talk about Miss Bala. First of all let's talk about how it's a remake of a Spanish film by the same name. I don't know how I missed that for so long but it would explain why I felt like I knew this movie when I saw the first trailer and it would explain why I thought I had mandala moments regarding it. I think I've seen the trailer for the Spanish film. It doesn't change a lot of my opinion of this film (neither does my personal opinion of Ms Rodriguez).
My first thought is that when you make a remake of a film you should have something to add. And I left the movie theatre thinking they didn't really add anything. Again it's important to note that I haven't seen the original. It just felt like there was something missing in the movie.
But that said it's a very entertaining movie. There's the always laughable scene where a girl and her hot friend go to a beauty pageant and the hot friend is told "you clearly aren't going to be entering... are you?". It's a compelling setup. There are just areas where the narrative feels unexplored. After Miss Congeniality it's hard for me to see a beauty pageant as something that doesn't take weeks of time to even fake it. Even though it's such a small part of the story it feels like it could have been more. Which is such a shame because what is there is so compelling. Gloria is a great character I kinda wanted more intrigue from her the trailer seemed to hint that she would play both sides against each other. That she would be a double or triple agent for ICE/FBI/CIA whatever. But it's so simplified. What i expected to just be the first strokes to making the twisted alliance ended up being the straight forward whole movie. I expected her to be doing whatever it took, not because she couldn't get out, but because she couldn't leave behind her friend. Instead her friend is missing for the whole movie. I thought at one point she might be dead and another girl would be the girl she 'couldn't leave behind' but that didn't pan out that way either.
I have other small nitpicks like it felt like there wasn't enough Spanish oddly enough. There's a scene where she has to remove something from a phone. But the phone is in a container of 10 identical phones. Instead of removing it she moves it to another phone. Which was interesting. Except she had to dig through three phones just to find the correct one. After which she dug through the bag looking for a phone before putting it in one seemingly at random. But .. why dig? They're all identical? And why bother putting it back? I sorta mentally linked back to the "mole" BUUUT. There was a 1 in 10 chance she puts it in HER phone. What then? It's not like she could tell which phone was hers and she avoided that one. It was just a weird scene that was tense enough but didn't make sense.