Miss Bala (2019)

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.

What this new version forgets, to its detriment, is that Gloria’s strength doesn’t come from finally holding the gun; it comes from being a survivor.

Miss Bala no longer serves as a critique of a system that might allow innocent people to get caught in the crossfire of the drug war, but as the kick-ass origin story for a new kind of action hero.

What keeps it all watchable is Rodriguez’s magnetism.

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.