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Movie Review:'Miss Bala'A Pointless Remake

Americanized Miss Bala pales in comparison to the original.

By Sean PatrickPublished 4 years ago 2 min read
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One day perhaps, actress Gina Rodriguez will be a major movie star. She has the talent and the charisma of a leading lady. She’s shown her movie star chops in her supporting role in Annihilation. There is no question that Rodriguez has unlimited potential. That potential however, is entirely unrealized in the rote and problematic remake, Miss Bala. An American take on the 2011, Mexican original of the same title, 2019’s Miss Bala does nothing to justify why it exists.

Miss Bala stars Gina Rodriguez as Gloria Fuentes, a makeup artist from Los Angeles who travels to Mexico to visit a friend. While out on the town, Gloria’s friend ends up taken and Gloria herself must navigate the corrupt, Mexican law enforcement establishment and the equally corrupt American C.I.A, embodied by a slumming Anthony Mackie. To save her best friend, Gloria turns herself over to a drug kingpin named Lino Esparza (Ismael Cruz Cordova) who wants to use her status as an American citizen to smuggle drugs.

Lino also takes a liking to Gloria, a fact she uses in order to stay close to him. She knows that he knows where her best friend is and she’s not leaving Mexico until she finds him. As Gloria is working for Lino to find Suzu, she also gets kidnapped and forcefully recruited by the D.E.A, in the form of actor Matt Lauria. The D.E.A want her to wear a wire, because these movies are nothing without a scene where someone is wearing a wire.

All the while, Gloria, though desperately overwhelmed and outnumbered, manages to stay on her own side and use the various forces pushing her around, against each other while she uses them to get closer to finding her friend. This reads a great deal more tense and exciting than what we actually get in this limp and forgettable action-thriller-rehash. Gina Rodriguez even threatens to make the movie interesting before she’s undermined by the overwhelmingly mediocre rest of the movie.

Catherine Hardwicke is a filmmaker of remarkable talent and it is bizarre to think that she directed such a dud as Miss Bala. The action is lifeless and stiffly performed, the character work is almost non-existent and a great premise is undermined by the familiar cliches the film cannot resist over-relying on in order to amp up non-existent tension that we know should be there. We know it should be tense because the 2011 Miss Bala is full of tension.

The 2011 Miss Bala is directed with nerve and grunge desperately missing from the remake. The original movie is a well edited action movie that happens to care to create characters we find empathetic and compelling. There is something about the Hollywood gloss and sheen of the 2019, American Miss Bala that takes away the liveliness and excitement of this story. You never feel the tension and excitement in this new version that is all over the original.

Like I said, Gina Rodriguez has talent to spare. She’s got unending potential but only if she avoids movies like Miss Bala. Cliche heavy action movies that pander to ugly stereotypes and cynical caricatures of law enforcement are just not the best way to operate a career in Hollywood. That’s especially the case for someone who has showcased her talent in something as innovative and creative as Jane the Virgin. That show is a clear demonstration of Rodriguez’s talent, the same talent that is covered in a dusty layer of mediocrity called Miss Bala.

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About the Creator

Sean Patrick

Hello, my name is Sean Patrick He/Him, and I am a film critic and podcast host for the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast I am a voting member of the Critics Choice Association, the group behind the annual Critics Choice Awards.

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