Miss Bala (2019) * *

Directed by:  Catherine Hardwicke

Starring:  Gina Rodriguez, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Anthony Mackie, Cristina Rodlo

Miss Bala earns points for its slick, polished style, albeit in the service of bland characters and an even blander plot.    We meet a reticent makeup artist named Gloria (Rodriguez) who finds herself caught in the middle of a war between a Mexican drug cartel and a corrupt police chief.    She travels to Tijuana to visit with her oldest friend Suzu (Rodlo), who needs Gloria's makeup expertise as she enters the Miss Baja California beauty contest.    They visit a hopping club one night and after an attempt on the police chief's life, Suzu is missing and Gloria is kidnapped by the cartel's leader Lino (Cordova), who is such a trusting and relatively nice drug cartel leader that I kept thinking he has to be a cop or DEA agent.    He has to be, no?   Otherwise, why is he taking Gloria out on a date out in the country and telling her his life story?    He and Gloria are both from Mexico, but spent a lot of time in the States, so neither person exactly fits in as a Mexican or an American. 

It turns out that date is quickly forgotten as the plot moves ever forward.   The date was used to establish the inner conflicts of the characters, but these don't play into the final act.    Gloria transforms from meek victim to gun-toting badass just when the script requires, as if a switch is flipped, and she walks through a hail of gunfire in slow motion.     Gina Rodriguez plays Gloria as a naïve babe in the woods, but I found myself not fully investing in her, maybe because her morphing into an action hero is so telegraphed that I felt she was biding her time (and ours) until the change.

Cordova gives Lino some interesting dimensions, but instead of following up on those, the movie forces him to slip back into vicious criminal mode and forgets all of the nuances brought up prior.    The movie does provide a twist of sorts, but nothing earth-shattering.    Miss Bala feels tired, with a lack of energy permeating each scene despite the activity.    Sure there are shootouts and chases, but it is by rote.    Miss Bala doesn't break any new ground in terms of story or characters, but it doesn't provide any sort of edge either.    We're left with roughly ninety minutes which didn't impact us much at all.