‘Miss Bala’ finds guns, drugs and entertainment below the border

Posted on February 8, 2019

By MARK VIOLA

The “War on Drugs” and the violence it has produced on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border have proved solid fodder for film and television projects over the years. On the film side, one of the best was 2015’s “Sicario,” directed by Denis Villeneuve and starring Emily Blunt as an FBI agent who finds herself in unfamiliar territory where there really aren’t any good guys.

The film just missed my Top 10 list that year, only due to the fact that 2015 was one of the strongest years for movies since I started reviewing them.

Well, if you were to take the serious, action thriller that was “Sicario” and turn it into popcorn action entertainment, you would have “Miss Bala,” starring Gina Rodriguez (“Jane the Virgin”) as a woman who finds herself caught up in the drug war in a situation in which there really aren’t any good guys. Only she isn’t an FBI agent. She’s a makeup artist.

Now, I don’t make the comparison to disparage “Miss Bala,” which provides exactly the popcorn entertainment I expected from the movie based on the trailers. The two films have radically different goals, even if they are set in essentially the same world.

In “Miss Bala,” we meet Gloria (Rodriguez), a Los Angeles makeup artist who is overlooked by everyone around her, except for her childhood friend Suzu (Christina Rodlo, “The Condemned”), who lives in Tijuana, Mexico. Gloria visits her friend to help her with an upcoming beauty pageant, but a night on the town ends in tragedy when a drug gang targets the local police chief, leaving Suzu missing and Gloria kidnapped.

In order to survive, and hopefully find her friend again, Gloria does something for the gang’s leader, Lino (Ismael Cruz Cordova, “Berlin Station”). That something turns into its own tragedy, and Gloria finds herself targeted by DEA agents, who tell her she must help them, or she will go to prison.

Caught in the middle, Gloria will have to use her wits and cunning if she wants to get out alive, find her friend and stay out of prison.

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke (“Twilight,” “Red Riding Hood”), “Miss Bala” is based on the 2011 Mexican film of the same name, which in turn was very loosely based on actual events. I haven’t seen the original film, so I can’t compare the two, but the English-language version shines best in showcasing its main character’s arc from start to finish.

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