| Columbia Pictures | Release Date: February 1, 2019 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
|
Positive:
5
Mixed:
17
Negative:
8
|
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Critic Reviews
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.
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There are white-knuckle moments, notably Gloria’s crossing of the border with a heap of stuff that would raise troubling questions were she stopped and searched. Rodriguez puts us right there in the car beside her and it’s thrilling. But the outcome arrives a bit too pat, our heroine conveniently switching from cowed hostage to arms-wielding ass-kicker with dubious ease.
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The souped-up plot is certainly indigestible (cheesecake, beefcake, bullets — choke on that), and there’s a steady stream of bad laughs, but something genuinely frightening comes through: a woman’s sense of disempowerment by men on all sides of the law. Hardwicke sticks to her guns — meaning there’s no play in the gunplay, only horror.
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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.
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The PlaylistJan 31, 2019
In its entirety, Miss Bala seems to exist merely for one shot near its end: Rodriguez strutting in slow-motion across the screen while wearing an evening gown and brandishing an assault rifle. And while yes, she does look bad-ass, there’s no way in hell it makes up for the film’s preceding 90 minutes of patchy plotting and lifeless writing.
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