Review of Miss Bala (2011) by Mike M — 05 Nov 2011

I wasn't entirely as convinced or as blown away by the new film as many have been, in part because that technical facility left me suspicious. "Miss Bala" doesn't allow itself the time to analyse the Mexican drug wars in any particular depth; the carnage it engenders is merely a colourful backdrop through which the director can pull us on his Steadicam-travelator, and not too much of the film sticks in retrospect.

For much of its duration, the film plays like an exercise - a skilful exercise, granted - in wiping the smirk from Sigman's face, the smirk of a teenager rather too aware of her own beauty, and a beauty that, for all its superficial value, counts for nothing when you're being shot at from every side.

(The prize in this contest is getting out alive.) Between the guns, bullets, the whip pans and the pretty girls, Naranjo's film is a combustible mix, to be sure, and I'm entirely certain it's possible to sit back, grab hold of the armrests and enjoy the ride it offers.

Yet "Miss Bala"'s signature scene struck me as coming late on during the concluding stages of the beauty pageant, when - emerging onstage to be asked by the event's host about her plans for the future - Laura seizes up, struck with absolutely nothing to say, only for her silence to be mistaken by the judges for a show of hidden depths.

Put it this way: it wouldn't surprise me if Naranjo's next move was over the border.