Miss Bala | Sony Pictures

[Blitzkrieg]

 

[Blitzkrieg]

The release date of this one does not inspire much confidence since it comes out during Superbowl weekend, which is considered to be a dumping ground for movies but I think it looks very good. Gina Rodriguez has proven herself with her dramatic turn in last year's Annihilation so this can surprise people.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Film Review: Gina Rodriguez in ‘Miss Bala’

Watching Rodriguez (whose breakout role was in the 2012 Sundance discovery “Filly Brown”), audiences can sense the emergence of a charismatic new star. That dynamic may as well be a complete reversal of the original film, in which a young woman is overwhelmed and effectively destroyed by the corruption around her. But Hollywood craves a happy ending nearly as much as audiences now want to see women succeed in a system that’s stacked against them. This mostly-English-language version of “Miss Bala” does with a shotgun blast what Naranjo did with a sniper round. It may not be an improvement on the original Mexican movie, but it’s sure to reach a lot more people.

'Miss Bala': Film Review

A tough and nasty 2011 Mexican drug world melodrama gets a reductive Hollywood-style makeover in the new Miss Bala. That this tale of a young woman caught between gangsters and the authorities along the Mexico-U.S. border is rated PG-13 rather than R tells you a good deal about the differences between the two films; the former was as hard and bleak as this one is emotional and conventional. The rating also signals that the new production is aimed more at teenage girls than an older action crowd, a bluntly commercial calculation made by the present producers. "Bala," one should know, is Spanish for bullet.