Miss Bala 2011

     Laura Guerro is 23 years old, she has entered the Miss Baja pageant with her friend Suzu.  Both of the women meet the qualification to be selected as the pageant winner.  Laura waits at a nightclub for Suzu so they can go shopping.  Heavily armed drug gang members murder drug enforcement officials at the nightclub?  Laura escapes but she can’t fin Suzu.  The cartel members notice her the next day as she looks for her friend.  They force Laura to assist them as they threaten her father and her younger brother.  Lino, the gang leader, decides Laura should finish the pageant but her only interest is escaping.  Every day she is dragged deeper into the activities of the gang.  She may only have two choices, death or prison for her actions?

     This film realistically emphasizes how an innocent person can get in over their head.  How is Laura going to be able to extract herself from the gang members?  What about her father and brother, are they also in danger because of Laura?  Because of the narco-war in Mexico, many of the people feel hopeless.  There is corruption at all levels and you can’t be sure who are the good guys and the bad guys.  There is a lot of violence too.  3 ½* (I liked this movie)

103 min, Action directed by Gerado Naranjo with Stephanie Sigman, Noe Hernandez, Irene Azuela, Javier Zaragoza, Lakshimi Picazo, Jose Yenque, James Russo, Leonor Victorica, Gabriel Heads, Hugo Marquez, Miguel Couturier, Eduardo Mendizabal.

Note:  Imdb 6.5, Rotten Tomatoes 87% critic 63% audience, Metacritic 79 out of 100 with 24 critics 6.9 out of 10 with 24 reviews, The Guardian 3* out of 5* Peter Bradshaw, RollingStone 2 ½* out of 5* Bilge Ebiri, Amazon 3.4 out of 5 with 60 reviews.

Special Note:  Filmed in Aguascalientes, Mexico.  Laura Guerrero is loosely based on Mexican model and beauty queen Laura Zuniga.  On December 22, 2008, she was arrested along with seven men for narcotic trafficking ties in Zapopan, Jalisco.   The gang featured in this film is called Estrellas, their logo is a lower-case e accompanied by a star.  Estgrella is the Spanish word for star.  Bala means bullet in Spanish and that means the title of this movie is Miss Bullet.  There is a remake of this film from 2019.  This film has 5.4 on Imdb.  The album cover of Janet Jackson’s 1993 self-titled album Janet inspires the film poster and Patrick Demarchelier took the photo.

Laura Zuniga:  On December 25, 2008 Zuniga was stripped of her title as Miss Mexico International 2009 and her successor Anagabriela Espinoza was given the title.  Zuniga was sentenced to 40 days after her arrest but was released from a detention center on January 30, 2009.  A judge found no evidence that tied her to any criminal activity.  She made a quiet comeback into the modeling industry in 2010.