By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2.7 cats
Director: Gerardo Naranjo
Starring: Irene Azuela | James Russo | Jose Yenque | Miguel Couturier | Noe Hernandez | Stephanie Sigman
Country: mexico
Year: 2012
Running time: 113
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1911600/
Bruce says: “At the end of MISS BALA a statement about drug wars flashes across the screen to inform us how insidious the multi-billion dollar drug business can be in terms of human life – 36,000 people have been killed in the past six years. Should someone have slept through most of the film that person might have mistakenly thought the film was a morality tale instead of the poorly made thriller it is. It is MISS CONGENIALITY with tons of action and zero humor. Compared to TRAFFIC it fails on
almost every count.
“Technically the film has its merits. There are some good camera angles, in fact Gerardo Naranjo knows a lot about how to construct a scene. Now for the downside. The action starts too soon, the plot rushes off to a jump start without the director setting any tone. It is obvious early on that Laura (Stephanie Sigman) has inadvertently hooked up with some badass folks but we don’t know much else about them. Only a few seconds are available to develop Laura’s character, the world she knows, and the parameters which might allow the viewer to develop an understanding about her predicament. In addition, the acting is uniformly poor. Ms. Sigman poses but reveals nothing about what is going on in her head.
“Laura and her friend Suzu dream about entering a beauty pageant. They put their names on the roster and squeak by, making the first cut. As they celebrate at the Millenuim Club they end up in the middle of a drug vendetta. Laura escapes the bloodbath only to be tracked down by Lino (Noe Herandez), one of the drug cartel’s front line leaders. Rather than snuff out a witness, Lino senses he can get some good work out of Laura and some hot sex to boot. She laments missing the call-back for the beauty contest and is told by Lino ‘not to worry,’ but first ‘we need you to run an errand.’ As part of a grandstand play for the bad guys, Laura drives some corpses to police headquarters, then escapes. Lino catches up with her and gives her another assignment. This time she ends up in a taxi crossing the border claiming she is going shopping in San Diego. Once through immigration, she boards a plane and ends up in the midst of crossfire in some unnamed place. Of course she escapes in time to cross back over the border in time for the finals of the beauty pageant. She is late; she walks across the stage in the swimsuit competition with no posing whatsoever; and she doesn’t even attempt to answer the question in the final round. Jessica Berlanga (Irene Azuela), the obvious winner is stunned when she is announced as first runner-up and Laura is crowned Miss Baja California. But Laura doesn’t stick around for the rest of the ceremony and the interviews. Within seconds she is back in the grips of the cartel, headed off to meet General Duarte as a decoy in a cartel assassination plot.
“As the plethora of plot points was unfolding, I sat wondering what these people were really like and how they fit into the complicated fabric of Mexican culture. MISS BALA offers no clues. 1.5 cats”
Jason says: “MISS BALA was Mexico’s submission for ‘best foreign language film’ at the Academy Awards this year, but didn’t
quite make the cut. That’s may be appropriate, depending on how you look at it – its either a thriller that’s short one twist and thus settles for being merely very, very good or an excellent attempt to communicate the constant, unending tension of life in certain parts of Mexico. Either way, it’s a movie well worth watching, and in many ways exceptional – it’s a rare movie that can sustain tension as long and as well as this one.
“Laura Guerrero (Stephanie Sigman) is twenty-three and lives with her father and little brother on the outskirts of Tijuana, and quite pretty, enough so that she is able to talk her way into the Miss Baja California contest despite being quite unprepared. Her friend Zusu makes it too, and parties with her gangster boyfriend to celebrate. Laura is trying to get her out of there when all hell breaks loose between rival gangs, and her attempts to find Zusu instead lead her to Lino Valdez (Noe Hernandez), a big name in the La Estrella crime syndicate with a favor to ask. Of course, Lino’s in trouble too, so doing him favors probably just makes the peril less immediate.
“Director Gerardo Naranjo and his co-writer Mauricio Katz do a number of things very well here, but one thing that is especially impressive is how, once they’ve started to bear down on Laura and the audience, they maintain a remarkably constant pressure. It’s not so much that Naranjo (who also edits) never eases up – although that’s rare – but the build-up is such a well-executed slow burn that the audience seldom feels the need for immediate cathartic release. That’s good, because the closest thing to comic relief is when the story moves through the Miss Baja California pageant, which by that point seems surreally superficial compared to what Laura’s been through. In fact, the filmmakers barely let up for exposition – Laura receives much
more in the way of instructions than information, and since the audience is almost never privy to anything she can’t see, we (like she) must piece things together from overheard news reports and first-hand experience.
“Never leaving Laura’s side means that, as good as the rest of the cast appears to be, their characters are going to remain somewhat mysterious, although what we see them do never seems arbitrary – they sell that there are reasons for everything they do aside from how it will affect Laura. Noe Hernandez paints a very good picture of Lino in the biggest supporting role, incredibly dangerous but a believable individual. It also means that we see a lot of Stephanie Sigman, and she almost never disappoints. She and the filmmakers give us the measure of Laura early on – pretty, average intelligence, maybe a bit below that in ambition – and once things get rolling, she shows us a dozen varieties of terror. That’s the base of her best moment, when she’s stuck in uncomfortably close proximity to Lino, and as he looks away, we can see that, yeah, she’s still scared out of her mind, but she’s also starting to think.
“(Potential mild spoilers lurk in this paragraph) As great a moment as that is, it may set up some unreasonable expectations for the rest of the film; audiences expecting a lot of back-and-forth to immediately start up may be disappointed. Indeed, one could argue that Laura lives a lot longer than the typical character does who, from Lino’s perspective, is a loose end without a lot of leverage. But, if you look at Miss Bala as less a thriller than a commentary, this makes some sense – maybe what was earlier read as getting ready to look for her moment is her deciding that obedience the best route to survival, and maybe her continued presence among the living is an example of just how arbitrary life in this environment can be.
“Whatever his endgame turns out to be, Naranjo directs the heck out of this movie, building the slow burn like a master, and then having violence explode onto the screen. He establishes the chaotic nature of a situation by having it pop up with very little warning or explanation but showing what happens clearly, which makes the danger we see extraordinary and unexpected but also a regular fact of life. After all that’s done, he ends the movie rapidly, leaving the audience still a little dazed and spellbound, as well as shocked over how much can happen in no more than a couple of days.
“That’s good; lots of thrillers stretch themselves out beyond what they need. MISS BALA ends with the audience still tense after at least an hour and a half in that state, and you’ve got to respect that. 4+ cats
“Seen 30 January 2012 in AMC Boston Common #3 (first-run, digital)”
Julie says: “Too disturbing for me. I had to skip through a couple of scenes. I did like the music and dancing fat drunk men in cowboy hats in that club at the beginning though. 2.5 cats”