Hardwicke loads the barrel with everything any feminist action fan could hope for, but Miss Bala splatters shotgun-style, with fragments of narrative shrapnel piercing every scene, without hitting any specific dramatic targets.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 9, 2019

The costumes are the key.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 29, 2019

Naranjo puts on a master class in aesthetic storytelling where the substance equals the style, careful not to allow the film's large-scale action sequences to threaten to glorify the real-life exploits that inspired the story.

| Jan 8, 2019

Once again, world cinema has demonstrated that a big budget and a well-known cast are not necessarily what is needed to make great cinema.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 29, 2018

Except for its disappointingly tapered ending, Miss Bala... is an impressive, anxiety-ridden crime drama that can join the ranks of some of the best in its genre, from two of Mexico's best talents.

| Original Score: + | Sep 8, 2017

The ambiguity Mr. Naranjo has stripped away from Ms. Ziga's cautionary tale is hardly made up for on the back end.

| Oct 7, 2015

Miss Bala is a tremendous cinematic achievement; both a stunning technical exercise in sustained tension and a rich allegory highlighting the hopeless scenario facing an entire society caught in the crossfire of a futile drug war

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 25, 2013

Naranjo numbs sensation to make his points about the drug war's damage to Mexico, turning Miss Bala into a thriller from the dissociative first person perspective.

| Original Score: B | May 10, 2012

| Original Score: C | Apr 14, 2012

...an audacious yet hopelessly uninvolving art-house thriller that peters out significantly in the buildup to its anticlimactic finale.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Feb 3, 2012

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 3, 2012

Naranjo is unflinching in his determination not to serve up mindless entertainment.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 2, 2012

Sloppy writing and storytelling make the near two hour film seem far longer.

| Original Score: C- | Feb 2, 2012

...it's clear Naranjo has a lot on his mind about the state his country has fallen into. If only he had a clearer narrative.

| Original Score: B- | Jan 30, 2012

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 27, 2012

Maybe the film doesn't add up to quite as much as its talented director, Gerardo Naranjo, seems to have hoped, but it is tense and propulsive.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 26, 2012

Miss Bala is full of virtuoso single-take tracking shots and over-the-shoulder perspectives that effectively convey a sense of menace and momentum.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 26, 2012

Naranjo offers a grim subject with neither flash nor sentiment. It is a sober film done with style.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 26, 2012

You feel the movie's authenticity, throughout the ordeal that leaves Laura brutalized, terrified, confused, abandoned, with nowhere to turn.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 26, 2012

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 26, 2012