Miss Bala

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Miss Bala centers on makeup artist Gloria (played by Gina Rodriguez). Gloria’s friend disappears one night while the two women are at a club. Gloria soon finds herself roped into helping both the DEA and a drug lord named Lino (played by Ismael Cruz Cordova). From there, she must use whatever strength and cunning she has in order to survive. I almost want to recommend Miss Bala—almost. Gina Rodriguez is the one thing about the film that truly stands out in my eyes. She owns every scene she is in (and sells every aspect of her performance and character). The unfortunate thing is, one strong central performance just isn’t anywhere near enough. The action isn’t awful. It’s just kind of standard, and it doesn’t really feel like there’s quite enough of it. I do also kind of have to give some credit to Ismael Cruz Cordova as the villainous Lino. The problem is he just doesn’t have particularly strong material to work with. Anthony Mackie’s in this movie. It doesn’t feel like he plays a character so much as a glorified cameo. Maybe he had a day off from filming Avengers. It doesn’t help that he clearly isn’t trying (something I didn’t expect from an actor who is usually charismatic). I also have to wonder if this movie would have been better if it committed to an R rating (which the Spanish language original was rated). I also have to admit that I haven’t seen the original version, so I can’t really (or even fairly) compare the two movies. I don’t want this come off as though I’m mad at this movie. I’m not. There are some decent aspects to this movie, just not enough for me to really care enough to a). get angry enough to say this is awful or b). say this is a good movie that’s worth checking out. Ultimately, I have to say you shouldn’t see this. That’s unfortunate because I actually wanted to see this movie. 

5 / 10