Gina Rodriguez deserves to be a movie star. After the world discovered her million-watt smile on Jane the Virgin, she makes the leap to the silver screen in Miss Bala—an effort that is not worthy of her talent and powerful presence.
Miss Bala is a remake of a well-received 2002 Spanish language flick about a beauty queen who gets sucked into Mexico’s drug cartel underworld and must do whatever it takes to save her hide. In the American produced redo, Rodriguez is Gloria, an LA-based makeup artist with aspirations to do more than apply makeup to models before LA Fashion Week.
She heads down to Tijuana to visit her friend Suzu (Cristina Rodlo). In this remake, she’s the one who is getting ready to appear in the Miss Baja California contest with a little makeup help and friendly support from her longtime friend (who also used to live in TJ, we learn). The evening before the event, they head out to a club to blow off some steam. Members of a drug cartel descend on the establishment, shooting it up, taking hostages for sex slavery and try to assassinate a handsy general, who is somehow connected to the pageant.
In the first of many preposterous moments, Gloria is in the bathroom when the thugs arrive. They find her. They see that she is an American. Then, the boss of the crew (who is the leader of the whole damn cartel!) tells her to get out of the club. Why? Because she’s from the U.S.? Whatever…
Gloria doesn’t. Instead, she races behind the armed assassins to the dance floor to find her friend. She doesn’t. Instead, she winds up face-to-face with Lino (Ismael Cruz Cordova)—the man behind the mayhem. From there, our heroine is forced to do some shady endeavors by the cartel leader, the DEA and everyone in between. She does so because each dangles finding Suzu in front of her like a carrot to a bunny.
Director Catherine Hardwicke crafts some pretty cool set pieces. It’s just what’s between those moments that the audiences’ mind is likely to wander to more pedantic endeavors such as shopping lists and plans for tomorrow, etc. You’ll recall Hardwicke helmed the first Twilight movie, before being pushed aside by the studio and/or author Stephenie Meyer. She is a talent, there is no mistaking that fact. Proof of that arrived earlier in her career with the stunning Thirteen. Additional evidence of her filmmaking gifts comes from witnessing her elevating Miss Bala from a mindless action flick to one that actually allows the viewer (on occasion) to ponder the fate of women held under the vice grip of nefarious underworld folks.
Rodriguez is a find. She is an action heroine in the making. Her Gloria is no Ripley or Sarah Connor by any stretch of the imagination, but that is not her cross to bear. The screenplay, by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, fails everyone involved. The emotional thread, that is so important to connecting the action sequences to our hearts, is completely missing. Dunnet-Alcocer needed to pump up the exposition and give us more to grasp with the friendship between Gloria and Suzu. In addition, how our protagonist is connected to Tijuana would have served that goal and grounded the film in some sort of emotional pull. Instead, Miss Bala—overall—feels like an endeavor that belongs in a direct to home video pile.
What Rodriguez does, more than anything, is establish herself as a versatile actress. We know she can do comedy, thanks to her hit show. Now, we know that she can carry a film on her young shoulders—even a messy one. Rodriguez does so much with her eyes and facial expressions that command our collective attention, even when the screenplay’s prose has minds wandering. She also handles herself with explosive panache through the action milieu tropes found throughout Miss Baja. The actress gives off the cinematic confidence of someone twice her age and experience. Rodriguez has a bright future in the movie business, and if she wants it—the action movie landscape. It is just a shame that her first big movie moment is one so filled with holes.
Cordova wavers in his part and it is frustrating. Again, it does not appear to be his fault. What’s fascinating is that his Lino is given more breadth of background for his character than our heroine! As Christoph Waltz once told me in an interview, he doesn’t see his villains as bad guys. That’s not how they are wired. When a screenwriter does their job, we the viewers keenly understand why this evil doer is doing his evil deeds.
That is somewhat the case with Lino and the actor behind him, Cordova… to a point. Once the film passes a certain segment, say the commencement of the third act, the actor and his character lose their grip of their story-driven reality. That’s an enormous pet peeve. We’ve spent two acts getting to know a character, witnessing their actions and hearing their dialogue. A shift in story or whatever the catalyst is, causes the screenwriter to send this soul to places that just do not add up—both emotionally and dramatically.
If you have been following The Movie Mensch for a while now, you know that this we are huge fans of Anthony Mackie. The Captain America: Civil War star is in Miss Bala! But he too, even in the 180 seconds that Mackie is in the film, abruptly alters his screen persona from first act to third act. Sure, there are plenty of places in movie history for certain roles to alter over the course of a film. But it happens organically and believably. Mackie’s Jimmy is not even remotely similar from point “A” to point “B.” It’s baffling… frankly, just like the entire Miss Bala experience.
Miss Bala makes me sad. It is rare, and thankfully becoming less so, to find a female action lead, much less a POC getting the chance to get in on the action-fest that has been too exclusive for men for too long. There’s an audience for it. There’s a legion of actors and actresses primed to tackle these roles and carry the action movie genre to the next level. There’s also a bevy of brilliant female directors like Hardwicke to bring these stories to life. Unfortunately, all involved were given a piece of coal and all the digesting talent in the world can turn Miss Bala into a diamond.
Grade: C-