Miss Bala
Directed by: Catherine Hardwicke
Written by: Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer
Starring: Gina Rodriguez, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Ricardo Abarca, Matt Lauria, Aislinn Derbez, Anthony Mackie, Cristina Rodlo
Action/Drama/Thriller - 104 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 31 Jan 2019
Written by: Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer
Starring: Gina Rodriguez, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Ricardo Abarca, Matt Lauria, Aislinn Derbez, Anthony Mackie, Cristina Rodlo
Action/Drama/Thriller - 104 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 31 Jan 2019
I relish recent cinematic trends opening up long-denied roles to different genders, ethnicities, and cultures. Black Panther blew us out of the water and made a billion dollars along the way. Doctor Who is female. Later this year, make way for Brie Larson as Captain Marvel. Now, Gina Rodriguez releases the kick-ass action hero hiding inside a shy makeup artist shell. However, equal opportunity also means equal opportunity to fail. Folks other than the cookie-cutter action hero stereotype can also make a derivative, clunker movie. Miss Bala is a remake of a 2011 Mexican film of the same name, and I can only assume it will make those familiar with the original shudder. There is no way it can be superior than anything before it. The plot holes are big enough for the bad guy SUV fleet to drive through, the cartoon gunfights exchange believability for fireballs, and Miss Bala trashes the coming out party of Rodriguez’s Jane the Virgin into the wide world of female action heroes.
We know there is more to Gloria (Rodriguez, Annihilation) than the rest of the world sees. When she shows her new ideas to the boss, his instinctive retort is, “We don’t pay you to think!” Gloria is underappreciated and too under the radar – it’s time for a vacation. Visiting her best friend Suzu (Cristina Rodlo) just south of the border in Tijuana, Gloria and Suzu exchange friendship bracelets and confirm they feel more like family than friends. Foreshadowed tragedy oozes by the gallon in this sentimental scene. While at a party celebrating the start of the Miss Baja California beauty pageant, gunmen shoot up the place, indiscriminately slaughter innocent bystanders, and Suzu goes missing. Is she dead? Was she kidnapped? Gloria is at a loss until delivered straight into the paws of crime boss Lino (Ismael Cruz Córdova).
We know there is more to Gloria (Rodriguez, Annihilation) than the rest of the world sees. When she shows her new ideas to the boss, his instinctive retort is, “We don’t pay you to think!” Gloria is underappreciated and too under the radar – it’s time for a vacation. Visiting her best friend Suzu (Cristina Rodlo) just south of the border in Tijuana, Gloria and Suzu exchange friendship bracelets and confirm they feel more like family than friends. Foreshadowed tragedy oozes by the gallon in this sentimental scene. While at a party celebrating the start of the Miss Baja California beauty pageant, gunmen shoot up the place, indiscriminately slaughter innocent bystanders, and Suzu goes missing. Is she dead? Was she kidnapped? Gloria is at a loss until delivered straight into the paws of crime boss Lino (Ismael Cruz Córdova).
Lino looks beyond the immediate situation that he kidnaps Gloria and forces her to commit crimes for his cartel. He see something more in her, a kindred spirit perhaps. He wants Gloria to move past the moment he made her deliver a car bomb and smuggle cocaine and cash up to San Diego at significant personal risk. Can’t she see how much they have in common, the makeup artist and the con artist? Just like Gloria, Lino grew up on both sides of the border. “I am too gringo to be Mexican, too Mexican to be gringo - that is why I take what is mine.” I would point out to Lino most of what he considers his is not, but that is for another film to try and parse. Gloria shares a similar background and every now and then director Catherine Hardwicke makes us pause to consider whether Gloria may succumb to some Stockholm Syndrome.
Unfortunately, this kind of character complexity requires subtlety and careful layering - characteristics not too far up Miss Bala’s priority list. Lino takes the time to show Gloria how to load and fire an assault rifle - perhaps that skill will pop up later. There are a few reasons Gloria must stay with Lino rather than make a break for it. First, he threatens Suzu’s little brother if she runs. Second, Lino swears he can find Suzu - the other malevolent force in Tijuana must have taken her that night. Third, the DEA gets ahold of Gloria, scares her with decades in prison, and forces her to go double agent in Lino’s gang by planting cell phone trackers and the like. Any one of these reasons would have done the trick and solved Gloria’s motivation, but only crushing pressure can produce the kind of radical change to transform Gloria from meek mouse into buxom badass.
I allude to Gloria’s figure because the main caper involves her winning the Miss Baja California beauty pageant Miss Congeniality style as the only way to find Suzu. Perhaps the filmmakers thought they could juice the box office by stuffing Rodriguez into a series of revealing evening gowns. The whole ensemble really pops when you add an assault rifle to the mix. This is around the time the themes of empowerment and self-discovery are discarded in favor of firearm poses. Advertising Miss Bala as barrier breaking and offering audiences a character they can identify with comes off as lip service considering how Hardwicke and company end up employing her.
Hardwicke made a splash by directing the first Twilight installment, also a film about identity - to love the vampire or the werewolf? To her credit, Hardwicke filmed Miss Bala on location in Tijuana including a major action shoot-em-up in the parking lot of the Plaza Monumental de Tijuana - the Bullring by the Sea. Tijuana is an apt setting considering it harbors its own identity crisis - at once beset by cartel violence amidst a rising tide of elite culture and investment. If the film was as realistic as its setting instead of peddling caricatures with all the depth of a puddle, Miss Bala may not be the waste of a remake it is. How can you take a film that was already filmed in Mexico with a Mexican cast, remake it with a bunch of Americans, and then call it barrier breaking? Didn’t the first one break the barrier?
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