Gerardo Naranjo's Miss Bala, the filmmaker's ravenous third feature, confirms suspicions that the recent signs of violent, subversive rage in Mexican cinema are no joke. Bleaker and far more unyielding in its very real terror than Jorge Michel Grau's ferocious cannibal satire, We Are What We Are, Miss Bala depicts Mexico as a world ravished by war, torn to shreds, and now struck by a plague of horror, from kidnappings and rapes to methodical torture to brutal, cold acts of murder, all of which go largely unanswered for and unjustified. Indeed, this kinetic tale of a beauty queen who becomes a courier, a pawn and a prostitute for a powerful, notorious drug cartel makes real those things that were merely talked about in El Sicario: Room 164.
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