Miss Bala

Name: Miss Bala
Genre: Action, Drama, Thriller
Released: February 1, 2019
Duration: 104 min
Rating: 41
Cast: Aislinn Derbez, Anthony Mackie, Barbarella Pardo, Cristina Rodlo, Damián Alcázar

2019

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Mixed or average reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews

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Mixed or average reviews based on 41 Ratings

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5.1	User Score Mixed or average reviews based on 41 Ratings

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Miss Bala: Special Delivery

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Movie Details & Credits

Columbia Pictures | Release Date: February 1, 2019 | PG-13

Starring: Aislinn Derbez, Anthony Mackie, Barbarella Pardo, Cristina Rodlo, Damián Alcázar, Daniela de la Fe, Gaby Orihuela, Gina Rodriguez, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Matt Lauria, Omar Ayala, Ricardo Abarca, Sebastián Cano, Thomas Dekker, Vivian Chan, Will Blagrove

Summary: Gloria (Gina Rodriguez) finds a power she never knew she had when she is drawn into a dangerous world of cross-border crime. Surviving will require all of her cunning, inventiveness, and strength.

Director: Catherine Hardwicke

Genre(s): Action, Drama, Thriller

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 104 min

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Critic Reviews

Mick LaSalle

Jan 31, 2019

A real surprise. It seems to promise an exploitative genre movie, about gangsters and drug deals, and it delivers on that, but it’s something more. Director Catherine Hardwicke and screenwriter Gareth Dunnet-Alcocet have taken a Mexican thriller, with a female victim at its center, and have turned it into an intelligent feminist film. Read full review

Rob Bailey-Millado

Jan 31, 2019

Overall, Miss Bala is a misfire — but its leading lady is No. 1 with a bullet. And that’s a beautiful sight to see. Read full review

Yolanda Machado

Jan 31, 2019

What this new version forgets, to its detriment, is that Gloria’s strength doesn’t come from finally holding the gun; it comes from being a survivor. Read full review

Danielle White

Jan 31, 2019

There are times when it’s funny. There are also times when it beats you over the head with context clues. When the action ramps up, the over-the-top music score seems to stomp its foot and say, “Something is hap-pen-ing!” Certain plot points are overemphasized. It veers toward parody. But it’s also satisfying to see the outcome. Read full review

The Playlist Kimber Myers

Jan 31, 2019

Miss Bala fails both when judged on its own merits and when compared to its predecessor. Just like Gloria in the film itself, Rodriguez is the only hero here. She works hard to elevate the material, but both she and her character deserve so much better than this. Read full review

Todd McCarthy

Jan 31, 2019

Gareth Dunnet Alcocer's script has a tidy, programmed feel that results in a feel-good version of a grim and sordid modern yarn. Read full review

Jake Cole

Jan 31, 2019

The Mexico of this film is merely a place of abject lawlessness, whose hellishness exists only to stoke our fascination for how the protagonist grows as a person by drawing on her inner strength. Read full review

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User Reviews

hnestlyonthesly

Oct 7, 2019

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. “I loved it and you cannot convince me that I didn’t,” said Wife to me during the credits of this movie.

Some time has passed since then and I still feel very strongly that this was one of the most fun action movies I’ve seen in a long time. An adaptation of a Spanish language film from 2011, Bala buzzes with the quirky absurdity of Miss Congeniality meets the gritty realism of Sicario meets the will-they-won’t-they of Twilight or The Office. Gina Rodriguez (Jane the Virgin) shows off her range in this novel addition to the genre. She’s sexy and sultry and cunning and badass and frightened in ways that cut new paths for future action films to follow, paths that would not be as possible with a man at the helm.

Bala turns the male wish-fulfillment element of most action films on its head by placing the damsel-in-distress squarely in the center of the storytelling. Her agency is what stokes the tension of the film, her escape attempts and her need to stay one step ahead of her captors. The film flirts with the complex mix of titillation and fear that comes from the possibility of Gloria’s real or manufactured feelings for her crime-lord-with-a-heart-of-gold, somewhat of a staple of the action-romance genre. At one point, we both turned to each other and whispered, “Are they going on a date right now?” only to have our minds blown by the very next scene.

A moment of tacit acknowledgement and sisterly abnegation punctuates a particular brutal scene of gang violence in the film and serves to complicate the moral decisions that Gloria must make in order to stay alive and find her friend.

Wife says, for those who’ve been blessed with the knowledge of the trailer, certain scenes of this film are heightened in their comedy even as the protagonist herself fears for her life. For instance, as she’s woken up in the morning and told to walk down the hill (possibly to her death), the audience recognizes the scene as the moment when she is about to receive target practice and that priceless line, “In the end, the bullet solves everything.

Bala revels in its absurdity and spins a pretty good romance and it’s leading actors have fabulous chemistry. If you are hungry for a Red Sparrow that doesn’t flag in the second act, check out this film.… Expand