MISS BALA IS A PAWN IN THE DRUG WAR
Titles at the end of Miss Bala inform us that 36,000 persons have died in the Drug War in México over the past six years, while $25 billion in profits have been made. The film proceeds to introduce 23-year-old Laura Guerrero (played by Stephanie Sigman) as an innocent girl from a humble background seeking to enter the competition to be crowned Miss Baja California. After being accepted as a candidate, she and her friend Azucena or “Suzu” (played by Lakshimi Picazo) go to a nightclub filled by federales. Laura is in the bathroom while members of a cartel enter the nightclub, shooting the police dead. She is allowed to leave because she keeps her head down, thus unable to identify anyone involved in the shooting. Concerned about her friend Suzu, she soon asks a police officer for assistance in locating her. But the police officer turns her over to the cartel. Gang leader Lino (played by Noe Hernandez) tells her what to do in a series of Perils of Pauline capers that take her to the other side of the border and back, just in time to be crowned Miss Baja, something that she knows is undeserved. Corruption extends beyond anything that she can imagine. Miss Bala [translation: Miss Bullets], directed by Gerardo Naranjo, is a window into the ugly Drug War that perhaps best explains why profits trump crimefighting. The film is loosely based on the fate of Laura Zúñiga, Miss Sinalao, of 2008. MH
BIG MIRACLE BRINGS RUSSIA TO THE AID OF AMERICA
Journalist Adam Carlson (played by John Krasinski) happens to be in Barrow, Alaska, when he learns that three whales are trapped in ice, with only a small opening for air, five miles from the open sea. When he tapes the story in early 1988, world attention focuses on their plight, and Greenpeace activist Rachel Kramer (played by Drew Barrymore) is soon on the scene, pressuring J.W. McGraw (played by Ted Danson) to mobilize resources to free the whales in order to regain PR soon after winning the contract to drill in Northern Alaska despite Greenpeace protests. Although most Inuits want to kill the whales for food, their leader soon realizes that his people will greatly benefit from the PR of saving them. Even President Reagan gets involved, asking Mikhail Gorbachev to send a Russian icebreaker. Based on the book Freeing the Whales by Thomas Rose, Director Ken Kwapis effectively raises consciousness about environmental issues and the rights of indigenous people. MH