Miss Bala 2012 Online
Gerardo Naranjo Made The Teen Runaway Drama I’m Gonna Explode In 2008, And Now Offers A Violent Pulp Opera, Set Amid The Brutal Drug Wars Of The Mexican Gangs. There Is A Fiercely Hollywoodised Style Here: Brash, Muscular And Loud, But A Flavour That I Would Describe As Sexed-Up Rather Than Sexy. Stephanie Sigman Plays Laura, A Beautiful Young Woman Whose Only Ambition, And Only Route Out Of Poverty, Is The Local Beauty Contest. Laura’s Life Is Changed For Ever When She Finds Herself Mixed Up With Some Very Scary Gangsters Who Take A Shine To Her. They Arrange For Her To Do Unexpectedly Well In This Highly Corrupt Competition, On The Understanding That She Does A Few Errands And Uses Her New Celebrity To Help Them. Laura Is, Of Course, In A Deeply Ironic Position: She Does Not “Deserve” The Tarnished Beauty Queen Crown, But She Has Found Personal Reserves Of Toughness. Is Her Survival A More Important Achievement? Miss Bala Is Well Made, And Conceived As Something Different From The Self-Conscious Pastiche-Homage Of Rodriguez Or Tarantino. It Is Trying Pretty Hard For Its Effects. Watch Miss Bala film 2012 Online
What Would You Get If Michael Mann Retooled Lucrecia Martel’s ‘the Headless Woman’ For The Guns & Ammo Set? Gerardo Naranjo’s Gobsmacking ‘miss Bala’ Is What: An Abrasive, Anything-Can-Happen Dirge Through Mexico’s Dismal Criminal Underbelly As Seen Through The Gorgeous Peepers Of The Wannabe Beauty Queen Of The Title (Stephanie Sigman). While Visiting A Grotty Underground Discotheque Frequented By Bent Coppers, Our Feisty Heroine Is Kidnapped By A Band Of Faceless, Nameless Terrorists And Coerced Into Carrying Out Their Illegal Bidding (And More). It’s Then Simply A Case Of Watching In Horror As She’s Knocked Around The City Like A Pinball, Violated At Regular Intervals And With Absolutely No One She Can Turn To For Assistance.
On A Purely Technical Level, This Is A Highly Accomplished And Original Piece Of Work, With All The Action Delivered From The Perspective Of The Simpering But Tough Sigman. Narajo Channelled Godard’s ‘pierrot Le Fou’ In His Rough-Edged Previous Feature, ‘i’m Gonna Explode’, And Even Though The Tone Is Very Different, This New Work Playfully Evokes The Spiralling Descent Into Savagery Of Jlg’s ‘week End’, Or Even The Impulsive, Tinpot Revolutionaries That Populate His ‘la Chinoise’ Or ‘prénom: Carmen’. Not That Narajo Is Particularly Interested In Fleshing Out Rational Ideologies For Either Cops Or Bandits: His Film Is All The More Disarming For The Fact That It Takes Place In A Society Where Politics Appears Redundant And Money And Power Are Gained Through Violent, Minutely Orchestrated Coups. So It’s Not A Political Film, Nor Is It One That Peddles A Liberal News Agenda About Mexico’s Ongoing Drug War. It Does, However, Allow Us To Take An Objective Look At Various Legal Power Structures, And It Helps Us To Understand That Whoever Wins This Battle, We Lose.
A Pageant Hopeful In Tijuana Is Forced Into The Hyper Violent Modern World Of Organized Crime In Mexico. “Miss Bala” Is A Thriller Dedicated To Giving The Audience A No-Nonsense Telling Of The Mexican Cartels And Their Stranglehold In Modern Society Of Mexico. The Film Uses A Beauty Pageant Hopeful Named Laura Who Is Pushed Against Her Will As The Focus To Propel The Story But It Is The Overarching Depiction Of How Entrenched The Cartels Are In Mexico That Becomes The Truly Horrifying Aspect To Watch. Their Control Could Be Described As An Octopus, In That The Cartels Have Their Tentacles Wrapped Around Every Possible Tangible From Politics To The Economy In Order To Maintain Dominance And Fear. Director Gerardo Naranjo’s Footnoted Statistics That Dovetail The Film Actually Burn Like Salt In A Wound Because It Is Clear That Stories Like “Miss Bala” Go On And Have Been Going On For Quite Some Time In Mexico.
Director Gerardo Naranjo Chose A Very Specific Story To Depict The Cartels Control And I Was Never Able To Feel The Tension That Was Intended Through Laura’s Plight. Even Without Disassociation From The Character, Laura Never Felt More Than A Pawn In The Cartel’s Scheme. Just Another Cog That Helped To Make Their Machine Continue To Turn. While On A Human Level Clearly I Felt For What Laura Is Going Through, But Based On Her Decisions And Motivations, It Was Hard To Care About What Was Unfolding. As Awful As It Sounds, Laura Solely Comes Across As Another Lamb To The Slaughter, But Perhaps That Is Just A Defense Tactic So That I Never Allowed Myself To Care For The Character.
Stephanie Sigman Delivers An Effective Performance As Laura Guerrero. The Role Is Bleak From The Onset Not To Mention Nearly Mute And Sigman Conveys A Full Range Of Panic And Fear Without Error. Sigman Illustrated A Woman Complacent In The Fact That There Is No Where That She Can Hide From The Clutches Of The Cartel And Their Plan. She Has Been Selected And She Can Either Play Along Or Be Killed Like So Many Others. The Crux To Laura’s Fear Is Connected With The Character Of Lino Valdez Aptly Portrayed By Noe Hernandez. Hernandez Displays A Genius Methodical Villain In Lino That Is Soft Spoken And Gentle Yet Deeply Intimidating. I Could Easily Watch A Spin-Off Film Focusing Solely On Lino And His Masterminding. Hernandez Is The One Thing That Really Pushed A Sense Of Alarm In “Miss Bala,” His Presence Is Absolutely Hair-Raising.
Cinematographer Mátyás Erdély And Director Gerardo Naranjo Do An Interesting Job Of Disorientating The Audience With The Camera Work. Much Of The Perspective Comes In A Third Person Sense, As If We Are Following Directly Behind Laura As She Is Subjected Through A Number Of Situations And Schemes To Execute The Cartel’s Agenda. Naranjo Also Chose A Very Deliberate Pace That Feels Hellbent On Slowing Things Down For The Situations To Play Out. Many Of These Sequences Become Uncomfortable, Pushing The Suspense Forward While Others Feel Over-Thought And Just A Bit Too Heavy-Handed. Watch Miss Bala film 2012 Online
“Miss Bala” Is A Success In That Is Brings To Light The Deeply Disturbing Control Of The Cartels In Mexico. Where It Waivers Is Its Dedication To Mixing The Ills Of Mexican Cartels In The Plight Of A Beauty Pageant Hopeful. Laura Is A Connectable Character And Plenty Will Have A Raw Connection To Her, Though I Believe A More Gritty Account Of The Cartel Would Have Made A Deeper Impact Than This Soft Spoken Tale. The Thriller Is Built As An Intense Ride But It Never Fully Captured The True Sense Of Paranoia And Fear It Intended.
Processing your request, Please wait....
