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Stephanie Sigman, Irene Azuela, Noe Hernandez, James Russo, Jose Yenque

Miss Bala tells the story of Laura, a young woman whose aspirations of becoming a beauty queen turn against her, delivering her into the hands of a gang that's terrorizing northern Mexico. Although La... read more read more...ura succeeds in winning the beauty queen crown, her experiences as an unwilling participant in Mexico's violent war leave her shaken and transformed. -- (C) Fox International Productions

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3,595 ratings

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62 critics

R, 1 hr. 53 min.

Directed by: Gerardo Naranjo

Release Date: January 20, 2012

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DVD Release Date: February 28, 2012

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Flixster Reviews (172)

  • mrbungle7821
    April 5, 2012
    mrbungle7821
    Miss Bala (Mexico's foreign film entry for 2011) is an unwavering, startling, and deeply tense movie about one woman's tragic and unwilling association with a powerful drug cartel. Laura (Stephanie Sigman) wants to be the next Miss Baja California, but she's unwittingly pulled in... read moreto a life of crime after she witnesses a gang hit. The cartel ensures that Laura wins the beauty pageant and becomes a courier for them. The movie takes a Lars von Trier approach to storytelling, putting its heroine through a torture chamber of anxiety and terror. This woman only wants to escape the hell she has accidentally found herself a part of, but every attempt to escape, be it going to the police or confessing assassination plots to the intended targets, gets her corralled back into the fray. For Laura, there is no escape. The movie packs a near-constant surge of paranoia, as we fear that at any time something awful will happen. In fact it's usually only a matter of time. Laura is more a symbol of the collateral damage of Mexico's billion-dollar drug war than a character, and she kind of becomes a numb zombie by the movie's latter half, perhaps accepting her doomed fate. Director Gerado Naranjo favors long unwinding takes and handheld cameras, which add a gritty realism and sense of compounding dread to the picture. The movie has an unflinching level of realism to it that makes it all the more haunting, stripping the romanticism from a life of crime. Much like Italy's heralded crime film Gomorrah, this bleak but impassioned movie shows the inescapable tentacles of organized crime and gives a face to innocents caught in the middle. Miss Bala is a testament to the hidden toll of a nation at war with itself.

    Nate's Grade: B+
  • SirPant
    March 23, 2012
    SirPant
    Miss Bala is quite a misleading film due to how it was publicised. It's not better or worse than I expected though but it is more brutal and shocking than I'd anticipated. It's pretty provocative but it needs to be in order to tell the story. Its real strength is when it puts the... read more viewer in the position of our protagonist, it reminded me of Samuel Maoz's film Lebanon in some scenes, the tension and anticipation levels are high, making it a very entertaining thriller. It always stays true to form though, never once sugar-coating the situation in gang-law territory, even the relatively happy ending will leave you feeling uneasy. A great film, it's just a shame they've done a poor job of publicising it.
  • gator681
    January 30, 2012
    gator681
    In "Miss Bala," Laura(Stephanie Sigman), a 23-year old shop girl, and her friend Suzu(Lakshmi Picazo) sign up for a beauty pageant, Miss Baja California. That night instead of shopping for a dress, Suzu drags her friend along to a nightclub. Bored, Laura wanders off where she i... read mores found by a gunman who asks her questions about who is inside, gives her a little money and tells her to get lost. Well, not before Laura can get Suzu out but they become separated once the shooting starts and Laura makes it to safety out a window. The following morning Suzu is still missing and Laura does the sensible thing in going to a policeman. But instead of taking her to a police station, he takes her to Lino(Noe Hernandez), the criminal leader, who asks her what she knows before inquiring if she can drive a car.

    There are statistics given at the end of "Miss Bala" about how many people have died in the drug wars in northern Mexico. Now, using a beauty pageant may seem like a screwy way at first to get there but according to the literature, a beauty queen is supposed to represent her subjects and Laura does, if you mean her subjects include those trapped in between the authorities and the criminals. The movie is on neither side, as it paints the authorities as corrupt and in cold blooded fashion Lino lets the DEA know that they are not welcome in Mexico. All of which is seen through Laura's eyes as she provides a ground level view of what goes on around her for the viewer, as she becomes little more than a commodity to the criminals with her body(notice how it is described, by the way) used and abused, with little choice in her actions. Even with large amounts of money on the table, she is not really tempted, either, with the exception of a scene in an upscale dress shop. The most important lesson in all of this is to always listen to your parents.
  • fb20312798
    April 11, 2012
    fb20312798
    What I like most is that the audience possess the exact same amount of information as the central character does from beginning to end, which gives the film an uneasy spontaneous energy that keeps you transfixed on the action. It pushes the limits of credibility at several points... read more, but that doesn't hurt the film enough to be a serious problem. As a thriller its quite nerve wracking and as a metaphor for how innocent Mexican citizens are used as pawns in the drug war between the various gangs and the DEA its effective.
  • xas5
    April 8, 2012
    xas5
    With tons of long take tracking shots and a subtle performance from Stephanie Sigman, Miss Bala displays the height of a war between a Mexican gang and the authorities through the docile eyes of a wanna-be beauty queen. There is a deep seeded humor in this film, which escalates t... read morehroughout the film. Had there been better casting, this film could have been exceptional.
  • scracasim
    January 21, 2012
    scracasim
    The film holds a good story, but the set pieces are conventional, and the cinematography can be pretty messy at times. The political ideals that the film takes grasp on aren't very familiar to a widespread audience, and the movie never seems to make it clear as to what is going o... read moren in this country. There's war. A lot of countries are at war. Plus, the concluding predicament of our character is rather empty and almost not believable. I was rather skeptical about the whole approach, and wondering if this was a character study, given the films attention to her mental state after the gang wars and whatnot, or a call out to others, expressing the violence of the area. The themes seem muddled, and I guess it could be both, but as far as story-telling and filmmaking goes, it's a foreign matinee.
  • danieljparsons
    October 29, 2011
    danieljparsons
    Review soon.
  • mvieaddict
    March 21, 2012
    mvieaddict
    I could not rate Miss Bala higher because for me the film started to show some real character development problems in its late half period. The film was quite watchable but not deep. Laura was an ordinary Mexican girl who wanted to participate in the beauty pageant Miss Baja Mexi... read moreco. Unfortunately, she got herself in the middle of a drug cartel war where she was taken as hostage and was forced to participate in their illegal activities.Laura's personality failed, because despite several good opportunities, she never made an effort to escape.Her character was dead, as I was wondering what the heck was wrong with her? Was she in shock or a Zombie or was she just stupid? Maybe her motivation to do as she's told came from her desire to protect her family from these animals? But it was never showed that she was being threatened in that way. The film did send a powerful a message of despair and showed a society of some stupid puppets ruled by criminals and corrupt officials with no way out.
  • eeks2
    May 16, 2012
    eeks2
    An allegory for the experience of a Mexican citizen in the modern narco-Mexican world, a Mexican citizen who is a prisoner to and a passenger on a voyage of violence, crime, imprisonment, and some technically consensual but still coerced sex. The protagonist is so passive and ha... read mores so little control of anything that happens to her (honestly almost everything she does after the first act has no impact on any of the subsequent outcomes in her story) that this movie is almost like a horrible ride, intentionally so. Excellent at showing and not telling, it's pretty light on exposition. But it was too severe, too dire, an unrelenting horror, which made it perhaps a more powerful statement, but unfortunately less awesome movie. But very good and worth seeing. The lead did well portraying a stoic fatalism.

View All Miss Bala Reviews

Critic Reviews

Peter Howell
February 2, 2012
Peter Howell, Toronto Star

Naranjo is unflinching in his determination not to serve up mindless entertainment. Full Review

Walter V. Addiego
January 26, 2012
Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle

Maybe the film doesn't add up to quite as much as its talented director, Gerardo Naranjo, seems to have hoped, but it is tense and propulsive. Full Review

Steven Rea
January 26, 2012
Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

Miss Bala is full of virtuoso single-take tracking shots and over-the-shoulder perspectives that effectively convey a sense of menace and momentum. Full Review

Loren King
January 26, 2012
Loren King, Boston Globe

Naranjo offers a grim subject with neither flash nor sentiment. It is a sober film done with style. Full Review

Kyle Smith
January 20, 2012
Kyle Smith, New York Post

This strange and eerie noir is more a collection of knockout scenes than a fully realized story. Full Review

Stephen Whitty
January 20, 2012
Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger

"Miss Bala" can't quite engage. It fires at the target. It makes a lot of noise. But it never quite hits the bull's eye. Full Review

Betsy Sharkey
January 19, 2012
Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times

There is a larger message to be found here, but it never derails the taut vintage thriller that's been constructed. Full Review

Manohla Dargis
January 19, 2012
Manohla Dargis, New York Times

It's an adventure story that could be called a contemporary picaresque if it weren't so deadly serious, and might be called fantastical if it weren't loosely based on a true story of a former Miss His... Full Review

Joe Morgenstern
January 19, 2012
Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal

"Miss Bala" is a portrait of a young woman who is at once terribly vulnerable and improbably brave. It's equally a vision of a vulnerable society on the road to anarchy. Full Review

Richard Corliss
January 19, 2012
Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine

An urgent dispatch from the sidelines of the drug war that consumes our southern neighbor. Full Review

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    • Laura Guerrero: My dream is to represent the beautiful woman of my state.
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