Miss Bala

The thriller ” Miss Bala ” by Gerardo Naranjo not only made it into the official program of the Cannes Film Festival in 2011 but was also nominated for the Mexican Oscar in the category Best Foreign Language Film and received a strong 4.5 stars here on FILM STARTS. The film is based on the true and bizarre story of a beauty queen from the Mexican state of Baja California, located south of California. 23-year-old Laura Zúñiga was arrested by the army there in 2008 with seven male gang members and large amounts of cash, weapons, and ammunition. Eight years after the first film adaptation, the US remake of the same name by ” Twilight ” director Catherine Hardwicke follows.

With this washed-out, barely exciting thriller remake Miss Bala, Hollywood is doing the celebrated original a real disservice. Unfortunately not the first and certainly not the last time in the history of the glossy dream factory that a non-English successful template has been chopped up in such a way.

• Miss Bala