Soon after her capture, Gloria meets face-to-face with the cartel’s leader, Lino (Ismael Cruz Córdova), who reveals he was once an undocumented immigrant in Bakersfield, CA., before he was deported and pushed into a life of crime. Lino is the movie’s thorniest character, a sensitive bad guy who warms up to Gloria to gain her trust. His manipulation and control are subtly romanticized, much like how movies have romanticized power-hungry gangsters in the past. Lino is also the best embodiment of how complicated representation can be for Mexicans or Mexican Americans. As a Mexican who lived in America like Gloria, his character absolves the movie from portraying all Mexicans as bad or corrupt. However, his character also plays into current anti-Latino rhetoric that undocumented immigrants are dangerous or capable of heinous crimes.

In a change from her upbeat persona from “Jane the Virgin,” Rodriguez dives into her character’s many emotions and action sequences with ease. She leans into the movie’s twists, moving quickly though Gloria’s shock and onto her quick thinking to escape. Although the plot to enter the main character into the beauty pageant loses much of its poignancy in the 2019 movie, the remake holds onto the visual motif for a dramatic final showdown in which Rodriguez, in a ballgown, reclaims her independence with bullets.

Although the new “Miss Bala” gives its lead character the agency to fight back and outsmart her captors, the film overdoses on its own message of pop feminist empowerment, changing its lead from a survivor to a superhero, as if the only way to liberate herself was by using the same violence that kept her captive. It’s a move that sanitizes the original’s direct and harrowing story, while casually leaving the door open for what looks like a sequel.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7s7vGnqmempWnwW%2BvzqZmq52mnrK4v46moKyrXZeura2Ma2dqcQ%3D%3D