Blackhat

BLACKHAT               B               
USA  (133 mi)  2015  ‘Scope  d:  Michael Mann          Official site

It’s been six years since Michael Mann’s last film PUBLIC ENEMIES (2009), an overly solemn and morose affair that loses any sense of the sleek elegance and grandeur that Mann’s films are known for, lost in a kind of dour and depressing looking digital era film blues, where the transition from 35mm celluloid to digital feels overly constricted to the point of suffocating.  Think what you will about Mann’s films, they have always had an overwhelmingly modern look about them where the sheer beauty of a city landscape has a breathtaking allure.  Mann began exploring the easy maneuverability and lightweight effects of a digital camera while shooting the boxing sequences in ALI (2001), where there’s been a steady decline since then in the cleanness of that look which has always been Mann’s trademark.  After a brief hiatus for whatever reasons (probably lack of funding, like everbody else in the business), one thing’s for certain, and that is Mann has rediscovered his ability to use digital cameras to create a lush canvas on the screen.  Specifically he turns to “old-school” British cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh, perhaps not a household word, but his notable work includes the early Jane Campion films AN ANGEL AT MY TABLE (1990), THE PIANO (1993), and THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY (1996), all of which look fabulous, and this film is no different.  What immediately grabs the audience’s interest is the relevance of the material, high tech security espionage, where you’d think former NSA contractor Edward Snowden from Citizenfour (2014) was one of the political consultants.  Mann actually met with Mike Rogers, the Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence as well as former black hat hacker Kevin Poulsen, once sentenced to five years in a federal penitentiary, now senior editor for Wired News, in an attempt to make the film as authentic as possible, where their input in researching, writing, and shooting the film is invaluable.  But it was the events surrounding a malware system known as  Stuxnet on Christmas Day, December 25, 2012 that captured Mann’s attention, where a computer worm targeted an Iranian power plant (the Natanz nuclear facility) and reportedly ruined nearly one-fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, perhaps the most significant advancement of a publicly known intentional act of cyberwarfare.  Stuxnet was initially discovered in June 2010 and was designed to attack industrial networks, where it is typically introduced to the target environment by an infected USB flash drive. 

Initially entitled Cyber, hacker films are a strange breed, as instead of humans, the featured objects of the camera’s interest are actually computers, where people are continually seen sitting in front of them typing in strange globs of technical data, where it’s hard to find anything particularly dramatic about that, and oftentimes it can look downright silly.  Up until now, the prototype has probably been SNEAKERS (1992), a relatively playful crime thriller, and prior to that WARGAMES (1983), which was actually watched at Camp David on opening weekend by President Ronald Reagan and discussed with members of Congress, WarGames: A Look Back at the Film That Turned ... - Wired, filmed at a time when there were few security measures in place to stop hackers.  Mann is more interested in creating a modernist landscape with a potentially futuristic scenario exploring the darker ramifications of cyber terrorism, where cyber crime resembles organized crime and is ruthlessly driven by greed, profit, and a lust for power.  From the opening moments, FBI agents are on high alert once it’s been determined that a sophisticated hacking device created an explosion at a nuclear power plant in Hong Kong, causing joint cooperation between high level American and Chinese investigators, where Los Angeles FBI agent Carol Barrett (Viola Davis) is assigned to work with a Chinese military officer from their cyber crime unit, Captain Chen Dawai (Wang Leehom) along with his sister Chen Lien (Tang Wei), both from Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution (Se, jie) (2007).  Dawai identifies the origin of the malware device, as it’s a variation on something he created along with his roommate in college at MIT, Nicholas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth), currently serving a prison term for bank fraud and computer crimes, where like Hannibal Lecter in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991), his expertise would be needed to track down the perpetrators.  Once sprung from jail, he takes a lead role on the case (much to the chagrin of the FBI), having a mix of roguish criminality and magazine cover good looks, but he’s light years ahead of the rest when it comes to modern era cyber crime, even though that’s hardly plausible after serving time in prison for five years.  Due to the accelerated advances in the computer stratosphere, each year rapidly outdistancing the previous year’s revelations, previous cyber knowledge would be near obsolete when it comes to the sophisticated levels of government intelligence security measures.  Nonetheless, this becomes an elaborate Mission Impossible (1966 – 1973) storyline where Hathaway’s skill sets are impeccable, like a modern era James Bond, where he’s forced to fend off attackers as easily as navigating his way through heavily guarded computer networks. 

Simultaneous to the power plant attack was a similar hacked entry into the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, causing the numbers to go through the roof, where this team has to identify the missing connection.  Taking a tour of exotic lands in the Far East, from Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, and finally Jakarta, Indonesia, this is a veritable travelogue into faraway lands, adding a texture of rich atmosphere throughout, guided by the haunting 80’s sounding synthesizer score from Atticus Ross.  While Harry Gregson-Williams is listed as a co-composer, the final musical selections chosen by Mann for the film are almost exclusively written by Ross.  One of the clever details Mann gets right is his less than admirable portrayal of the NSA, who are viewed with a deep-seeded distrust by actual computer experts from Silicon Valley, especially after they were secretly spied on and targeted by their own government.  Here they are in possession of a secret supercomputing service known as Black Widow, capable of analyzing data faster than anything available to the outside world, but they refuse FBI requests for assistance, as they are viewed as hidden and entrenched behind a veil of governmental secrecy and impenetrability, more interested in protecting themselves than in helping to solve the crimes, even after it’s been established that the nuclear accident was a dry run for an even larger catastrophe that has mass international implications.  Quite unlike most thrillers, Mann subverts the stereotypes where the Americans are viewed as petty, closed-minded incompetents that refuse to see the bigger picture while actually generating more sympathy to the Chinese.  While there is the obligatory romance between Hathaway and Chen Lien, there is also a flamboyant sweep through picturesque geographical regions, where much of it plays out like a road movie with spectacular backdrops.  Some of the most remarkable imagery comes from the prevalent use of modern urban architecture, where humans often seem small and insignificant by comparison.  Nonetheless they are seen racing through scenes of astonishing beauty, stopping occasionally for shootouts with the bad guys on the run, even dropping into an underground sewer system in pursuit, where our team has to crack their computer codes and penetrate their invisibility in identifying the mastermind behind the operations named Sadak (Yorick van Wageningen).  Two of the better scenes are in marked contrast, one featuring Chen Lien dressed fashionably all in white as she devises a devious plan to obtain access to Sadak’s bank accounts, dressed in splendor like corporate royalty as she enters the bank pretending to be a featured speaker at an important meeting taking place, but needs to copy her written presentation which was ruined by a coffee spill, handing the unsuspecting security guard a USB drive which instantly breaks into the bank’s computer network.  The other is a beautifully choreographed sequence that takes place during an annual Balinese Hindu celebration called Nyepi or “Day of Silence,” where they ask for forgiveness to atone for their sins, becoming a massive ritual procession of devout worshippers dressed in red flowing saffron robes.  Like a scene out of Zhang Yimou who thrives on mass spectacle, this is the colorful setting for the final showdown, much of it taking place against the flow of humanity, where forces of good and evil are intertwined in search for a restorative balance, with many lives lost, where the viewer is left in an ambiguous haze of disorientation where only time will tell if there’s a brighter future on the horizon.    

Thief

THIEF             A-                   

USA  (122 mi)  1981  d:  Michael Mann

I am the last guy in the world that you wanna fuck with.     —Frank (James Caan) 

After some brief work in television, this is Michael Mann’s first feature film, and the only film *not* shot on ‘Scope throughout his career, but it’s one of his most eye-popping films, with a dialogue-free opening where the everpresent rain and the synthesized musical score in an urban environment may make some think of Blade Runner (1982), which was still a year away.  Instead this is a crime thriller set on the streets of Chicago, the director’s hometown, introducing many local actors who would go on to have prominent careers, while showing in all its glory the essence of Lower Wacker Drive, once an underground, subterranean world of decaying cement pillars, an actual road directly underneath another road called Wacker Drive that runs on ground level, that was a haven for the derelicts and the homeless, given a clean sheen from the rain, making it almost look clean and respectable instead of the filthy rat trap it actually was, years later cleaned up by the city, sending all the homeless and riff raff away to other less protected grounds.  The grime of this notorious roadway rubs off on the film’s subject matter, suggesting crime is a dirty business.  James Caan, forever remembered as the hot-headed Sonny Corleone in THE GODFATHER (1972), plays Frank, an upscale jewel thief who uses the most sophisticated technological equipment as his means of entry, outsmarting the cops on all fronts, usually making a bundle while getting away clean.  Like most Mann films, this is a gorgeous looking neo-noir film, shot by Donald E. Thorin, making excellent use of onsite locations, using first class film composition throughout, plenty of night shots, and sensational editing.  Adapting a story written by an actual thief, the 1975 novel The Home Invaders: Confessions of a Cat Burglar by Frank Hohimer, pen name for John Seybold, who actually specialized in home invasions and was ironically serving time in prison while this film was in production.  Mann changed the focus to a jewel thief, using actual thieves as professional consultants for the film, along with their tools and equipment.  The burglary tools were provided by John Santucci, in reality a recently paroled thief who plays the rousting corrupt cop Sgt. Urizzi, the guy continually tailing Frank, where the tools of the trade are prominently featured in the film, usually in extended wordless sequences, much like Jules Dassin’s RIFIFI (1955), where the professionalism of the planning and the meticulous detail of carrying out near impossible crimes simply holds the audience breathless. 

Much of this film feels like racing against time, as it opens wordlessly at a blistering pace right in the middle of a robbery in progress, with pulsating synthesizer music by Tangerine Dream that is locked in synch with their movements, where Frank is carefully working his way around a bank safe’s supposedly impenetrable lock mechanism, using heavy duty drill equipment (which the actors were trained to use) to search for a secretly concealed safety catch, where once inside he helps himself to a free-for-all of safety deposit boxes filled with stored diamonds.  The lookout in the car parked in the alley is honed in on the police radio, where both remain in close contact through a wire, as the jewels are dropped with the lookout who drives off while the thieves walk away on foot through a rain-soaked alley, quickly stripping off their work overalls until they appear as normal as can be.  After a job well done, we can see Frank kick back in a quintessential Michael Mann shot that appears again in MANHUNTER (1986), HEAT (1995) and THE INSIDER (1999). With his back to the camera, Frank looks out at the lake in a kind of Zen inner calm, where he has some degree of inner peace and personal fulfillment. Frank’s cover is running a car sales operation, though much of the time is spent in what looks like stripping down stolen cars into something he can sell on his lot, making it look like a respectable business.  A consummate professional, a man proud of what he does, knowing he’s the best there is, he is also someone looking ahead to where he never has to worry about looking over his shoulder again.  Respectability means family and stability, something he’s never had in his life, through privately this is his all-consuming desire.  We only learn this in a lengthy conversation he has with Tuesday Weld as Jessie, one of the stronger female protagonists in any Mann film, terrific as a woman who’s been around the block once or twice, but the woman Frank wants to hold onto, even though she doesn’t know it yet.  When Frank whisks her out of a bar (where Mighty Joe Young is playing), literally kidnapping her against her will, stuffing her into his car until they arrive at an all night diner where Frank’s near ten minute monologue is the centerpiece of the film, as he literally pours out his life story.  This may be James Caan’s proudest moment as an actor, as despite confessing his criminal history to a woman who’s dead set against his ideas, having had trouble with a drug trafficker in the past, but the guy is mesmerizing in convincing her that he has no time left in his life to bullshit or play games, that after spending a decade in prison he has to make up for lost time if he wants his piece of the American Dream, eventually persuading her (and the audience) that they are intrinsically linked together romantically, just a drop dead memorable cinematic moment, as the guy couldn’t be more genuinely straightforward, a complete game changing moment, as otherwise he’s a professional swindler, not the most trustworthy character.  Who’d believe him?—yet he’s convincing.   

While everything to this point is among Mann’s best ever, using an odd mix of humor, male machismo, believable characters, and well-written, beautifully constructed scenes, where the dazzling pace of the film matches the accumulated interest in the storyline, which is astonishing in itself, where Frank is the kind of guy who meticulously reconstructs his lost or broken life piece by piece, where he constructs a marriage, a home, and a family exactly as he prepares for and approaches the most difficult aspects of his heists, one step at a time, where much of this film bears witness to his focus on the small details in order to be successful.  But things take a turn for the worse with the introduction of Chicago crime boss Leo (Robert Prosky), a reassuring father figure who’s always promising some idealized fantasy perfection, telling people their worries are over, that if they work with him, he’ll take care of everything.  Despite his better judgment, Frank is tempted by this Faustian offer that sounds too good to be true, as the lure of such a lucrative heist could solve all his problems, where he could pull one last big score and finally retire into respectability.  Frank has always run his own show, used his own guys, never had to answer to a “boss,” and he insists on keeping things that way.  But as soon as they agree to work together, his house is bugged and the cops are all over Frank because they know something big is in the air, as what are these guys doing, supposedly each other’s competition, suddenly chumming around?  Nonetheless, Frank’s advance work, including his pal Barry (Jim Belushi), the crack expert at breaking security, begins to bear fruit, where after plenty of doubts about whether it was even possible, they began to understand how to pull it off.  It’s here the film re-focuses on incorporating documentary detail, where the process of the crime takes center stage, where the audience is treated to the spray of sparks from a blowtorch and hand-rigged welding equipment, using some super-heated lance with a white hot tip to literally melt a safe open, where fire and smoke turn a bank vault into an iron smelt, with Frank and his crew consumed by the heat and smoke in the confined, claustrophobic space, where his grimy face afterwards looks like he spent the day in a steel mill.  Despite the apparent success of the operation, Leo and Frank don’t see eye to eye, as Leo sees a budding future together while Frank wants out.  These are not the kind of guys who accept no for an answer, but Caan and Prosky are excellent holding their ground in a spellbinding chess game of battling wits which could easily blow up in their faces at any time.  “You are making big profits from my work, my sweat, my risk, but that is OK because I elected to make that deal. Now the deal is over, and it’s pay-up time.”  Indeed—while some of this appears again in a later Mann film, HEAT (1995), which has a similar lengthy coffee shop sequence (with adversaries Robert De Niro and Al Pacino), the writing is terrific throughout, maintaining fresh interest and energy, keeping the suspense taut, using a remarkable score, where it all comes to a head with a convoluted 1980’s style action finish, given a highly stylistic flourish of double crosses and bullets, where the apocalyptic final shot bears a similarity to the Coen Brothers’ NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007).   

2011 Top Ten Films of the Year #9 Miss Bala

MISS BALA                     A-

Mexico  (113 mi)  2011  ‘Scope  d:  Gerardo Naranjo

While this is a case of the truth is stranger than fiction, the director along with fellow writer Mauricio Katz have fashioned a fictionalized account of real events that leap out of the headlines, Miss Sinaloa and the Seven Narcos, ran the headline in The Mexican-Daily El Universal, where beauty queen Laura Zuñiga, Miss Sinaloa 2008, was arrested along with seven suspected narco drug traffickers in a truck filled with guns and ammunition, including $53,000 in cash, two AR-15 rifles, three handguns, 633 cartridges of different calibers, and 16 cellphones, on December 23, 2008 in Zapopan, Mexico.  According to the film, 50,000 people have lost their lives in the Mexican Drug Wars just in the last 6 years where the profiteers are protecting a $30 billion dollar industry within Mexico alone, which of course, also exports to the consumer hungry United States.  What makes this even more interesting is the connection to American (DEA) Drug Enforcement Agents, where recently the U.S. Attorney General has come under fire for his lack of knowledge about guns from the DEA gone missing in Mexico in an operation gone bad, where it turns out the U.S. is basically arming the narco traffickers.  But this film foregoes the politics and turns this into an atmospheric mood piece on abject fear and hopelessness, creating a harrowing and visceral experience, a seat-of-your-pants thriller reminiscent of the opening episode from AMORES PERROS (2000), easily the best thing Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu has ever done, with both uniquely expressing a raw, in-your-face, hyperkinetic energy that literally jumps off the screen.  This film creates a similar pulse rate, but only in certain stages, as otherwise the gangsters lay low for awhile and rest easy for a little R & R with the co-opted beauty queen until they decide to move again.  Much of this has the feel of a para-military operation, complete with reconnaissance teams that always report the whereabouts of the cops, information from men who have infiltrated inside the records of the army and police, using one-time only cell phones to communicate orders to the commanders in the field, which are then cleaned to prevent tracing, while armies of trucks and black SUV’s with tinted windows swerve in and out of traffic in precise increments based on their knowledge of the various positions of the police.  Make no mistake, these are military maneuvers. 

While this may sound surprising to most Americans who still haven’t a clue what’s happening in the gang wars taking place in ghettos across America, this activity in Mexico is not confined to specific neighborhoods, but can play out on the city streets anywhere, where the presence of these gigantic SUV’s is an everyday reality for most citizens, where all they can hope is that they’re not targeting civilians.  Like any other war, this one goes after the Who’s Who in both the police and drug trafficker operations, each searching for the other, and when they meet a fierce firefight develops instantaneously, where chaos reigns and bullets fly in all directions.  The collateral damage extends to innocent civilians who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  This film doesn’t suppose what happens when the innocent civilian is a Mexican beauty queen, but uses her actual experience of what really happened when she got sucked into narco operations purely by chance, where she proved useful to them as she was scared shitless, afraid for the lives of her family, so would do as instructed over a brief period of time which included several operations.  In real life, she was released following her arrest after the subsequent investigation proved she had no involvement with the narco drug industry, but was only a pawn in their game, suggesting it could just as easily be anybody, and often is.  This one just happened to be especially pretty, Stephanie Sigman as Laura Guerrero, a beauty queen contestant that attracted the eye of the drug kingpin, Lino (Noe Hernandez), a shadowy head of the Estrella drug cartel who sees her huddling in the corner during the middle of a raid on a nightclub targeting DEA agents, allowing her to live in order to make use of her in the future.  The film wastes no time getting right into the thick of the action.

This plays out like a Mexican version of a Michael Mann action thriller, shot in ‘Scope using long takes from the constantly probing camera by Hungarian cinematographer Mátyás Erdély, often altering the focus in the same shot, making excellent use of locations and off-screen sound, featuring riveting performances from characters forced to act on impulse when events continually spiral out of control, where the gangsters thrive on this kind of heart racing action, driving trophy Porsches through the streets of Tijuana, but not a teenage girl who is being used for target practice for the first time in her life, where she spends most of the movie close to peeing in her pants from the intense fear, where Lino is continually toying with her, always getting what he wants and then throwing her away until she’s summoned again from out of the blue, a repeating cycle that seemingly can’t be broken.  The overriding theme here is fear and how it plays havoc with ordinary people who are caught up in this phenomenon of gunfights taking place on the city streets in broad daylight, where one of the best edited transitions seen all year finds Laura pinned down in one of the fiercest gunfights you could imagine, using a slow tracking shot where bodies are dropping and bullets are flying, where the sound is deafening, like what it must have been for the Marines trapped in Mogadishu, where she is then whisked away from that reality into a continuing pan through the back wings of a beauty pageant where she is quickly dressed for a runway appearance, and with tears streaming down her face she’s continually reminded to smile.  This kind of mood shift is insane, as you have no time to process the fear, as her life has turned into a human pin cushion of getting stuck repeatedly with having to perform some of the most dangerous drug operations, where she is the center of the storm not knowing which way to turn for safety, as the bullets are flying from every direction, where Laura has to rely on the whims of a cold blooded killer for protection.  While the film is seen exclusively through the terrified eyes of one woman, the larger issues of Mexico’s inability to protect ordinary citizens from being caught in the crossfire of the Drug Wars remain. 

Se7en

SE7EN                        B+                     

USA  (127 mi)  1995  ‘Scope  d:  David Fincher

I just don’t think I can continue to live in a place that embraces and nurtures apathy as if it was virtue.           —Detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman)

It’s a dark and foreboding world set in some timeless and nonspecific present.  What’s worse? It’s wet, where a deluge of rain continuously pummels a hellish dark city drenched in a criminally infested cesspool that starts resembling Sodom and Gomorrah.  This is a fatalistically grim and enormously creepy serial killer film, where the production values are coolly impressive, but like most Fincher films, the emotional detachment can be overwhelming at times.  Morgan Freeman as Detective William Somerset is one of the highlights of the film as a downbeat, world weary but extremely conscientious detective who is within a few days of his retirement.  His sense of order and objective detachment has an old world quality to it, somber and scientific, a man who reflects before he acts, whereas the other cops are more temperamental and hot-headed, prone to knee-jerk reactions where they want to play the hero, as exemplified by a new detective assigned to work with him, Brad Pitt as Detective David Mills.  In fact, Somerset immediately sees Mills as a detriment to solving the most recent case, a particularly horrific murder, as Mills confidently jumps headlong into the thick of it like a young hotshot without any serious regard for what he’s dealing with.  Mills is quickly assigned to another murder which is equally egregious, where the two are destined to share evidence as if by fate.  But it’s Somerset’s dogged persistence working studiously in the library that gets a handle on just what they’re dealing with, as the killer is naming each abominable murder with one of the Seven Deadly Sins, which suggests more are forthcoming.  What’s truly bloodcurdling about each murder is the methodical degree of patience exhibited by the killer as he inflicts excruciating and unthinkable amounts of pain before each victim dies, where he may even force them to mutilate themselves during the process.  All this precedes the SAW (2004 – 2010) series, notorious for their gruesomely graphic depictions of sadistic torture porn, where this is more suggestive, as the actions have already taken place offscreen before the detectives discover the catastrophic remains.

This is not the tense thriller of MANHUNTER (1986) or THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991), both of which focus on the psychological profile of a monsterish psycho killer, instead this is seen through the differing perspectives of the two investigating cops as they try to piece together the necessary materials to catch the guy, who remains unseen and out of reach for the first two-thirds of the film.  Mills has brought along his wife, Gwyneth Paltrow, in his transfer to the city, but it’s clear she’s unhappy there, that the move was more likely based on his personal career ambitions, while that’s the kind of mental clutter Somerset has little use for, as his laid back approach is more low key and unassuming.  The biggest problem of the film is the casting of Pitt, who continually whines and overacts and is clearly outclassed by the relaxed intelligence yet judicious manner of Somerset, who is in every way Mills’ superior, but humble enough to allow Mills to run the investigation due to his approaching final days on the force.  Mills never rises to the occasion, never elevates his stature, and never shows the cautious professionalism of a good detective.  Moreover, he’s not a very sympathetic figure, where his impatience and casual air of reckless nonchalance can easily get others into trouble and allow criminals to walk away free, as he’s seduced by a world of shortcuts and quick fixes.  His temperamental cowboy mentality is in stark contrast to the more intellectually refined and cerebral Somerset, a man alone in a world that has passed him by, moving at an altogether slower pace than the world around him, which is portrayed as a nightmarishly corrupt city of neverending crime.

It is this incessant stream of unstoppable crime and the public’s apathy to it that is leading Somerset into retirement, yet he lingers on the case knowing Mills doesn’t have the experience or expertise to apprehend such a coldly calculating, viciously brutal killer.  Throughout the entire ordeal, the key to understanding this dark and disturbing noir universe can be found in the sad eyes and defeated voice of Morgan Freeman, whose agonizing sense of despair in the face of such ghastly horrors lends a sense of unexpected clarity.  The biggest strength of the film is a dazzling opening credit sequence and the visual invention of cinematographer Darius Khondji that gives the film some magnificent architectural looks resembling the crumbling and decaying world of Blade Runner (1982), moving back and forth between immense open space and cramped, claustrophobic quarters, as the detectives creep through the tight hallways and blood-filled crime scenes investigating the murders, where you can reach out and seemingly touch the wallpaper peeling from the walls.  Even worse is the hypnotic sense of awe and disbelief as they enter the lair of a psychopath with his multiple connecting rooms, some with religious significance and some resembling a scientific torture chamber, complete with Medieval devices.  Apparently only in Somerset’s retreat into the quiet enormity of the library is there any sense of calm or prevailing order, as otherwise the world outside is continually seen in utter turmoil, almost like a nightmarish apocalyptic vision of a world in ruin.  When the elusive killer finally reveals himself, heard first as a voice over the phone (uncredited, but marvelously committed to the role), he’s like an avenging angel of doom carrying out the terrifying wrath of God.  Fincher does an excellent job withholding the presence of the killer until the end while continually sustaining a tense and taut atmosphere throughout.  The pace of this morbidly compelling film never wavers, while the astonishing finale is abruptly shocking and uncompromising.

Miss Bala

Laura Zuñiga mug shot, Miss Sinaloa 2008

Laura Zuñiga, Miss Sinaloa 2008

MISS BALA                            A-

Mexico  (113 mi)  2011  ‘Scope  d:  Gerardo Naranjo

While this is a case of the truth is stranger than fiction, the director along with fellow writer Mauricio Katz have fashioned a fictionalized account of real events that leap out of the headlines, Miss Sinaloa and the Seven Narcos, ran the headline in The Mexican-Daily El Universal, where beauty queen Laura Zuñiga, Miss Sinaloa 2008, was arrested along with seven suspected narco drug traffickers in a truck filled with guns and ammunition, including $53,000 in cash, two AR-15 rifles, three handguns, 633 cartridges of different calibers, and 16 cellphones, on December 23, 2008 in Zapopan, Mexico.  According to the film, 50,000 people have lost their lives in the Mexican Drug Wars just in the last 6 years where the profiteers are protecting a $30 billion dollar industry within Mexico alone, which of course, also exports to the consumer hungry United States.  What makes this even more interesting is the connection to American (DEA) Drug Enforcement Agents, where recently the U.S. Attorney General has come under fire for his lack of knowledge about guns from the DEA gone missing in Mexico in an operation gone bad, where it turns out the U.S. is basically arming the narco traffickers.  But this film foregoes the politics and turns this into an atmospheric mood piece on abject fear and hopelessness, creating a harrowing and visceral experience, a seat-of-your-pants thriller reminiscent of the opening episode from AMORES PERROS (2000), easily the best thing Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu has ever done, with both uniquely expressing a raw, in-your-face, hyperkinetic energy that literally jumps off the screen.  This film creates a similar pulse rate, but only in certain stages, as otherwise the gangsters lay low for awhile and rest easy for a little R & R with the co-opted beauty queen until they decide to move again.  Much of this has the feel of a para-military operation, complete with reconnaissance teams that always report the whereabouts of the cops, information from men who have infiltrated inside the records of the army and police, using one-time only cell phones to communicate orders to the commanders in the field, which are then cleaned to prevent tracing, while armies of trucks and black SUV’s with tinted windows swerve in and out of traffic in precise increments based on their knowledge of the various positions of the police.  Make no mistake, these are military maneuvers. 

While this may sound surprising to most Americans who still haven’t a clue what’s happening in the gang wars taking place in ghettos across America, this activity in Mexico is not confined to specific neighborhoods, but can play out on the city streets anywhere, where the presence of these gigantic SUV’s is an everyday reality for most citizens, where all they can hope is that they’re not targeting civilians.  Like any other war, this one goes after the Who’s Who in both the police and drug trafficker operations, each searching for the other, and when they meet a fierce firefight develops instantaneously, where chaos reigns and bullets fly in all directions.  The collateral damage extends to innocent civilians who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  This film doesn’t suppose what happens when the innocent civilian is a Mexican beauty queen, but uses her actual experience of what really happened when she got sucked into narco operations purely by chance, where she proved useful to them as she was scared shitless, afraid for the lives of her family, so would do as instructed over a brief period of time which included several operations.  In real life, she was released following her arrest after the subsequent investigation proved she had no involvement with the narco drug industry, but was only a pawn in their game, suggesting it could just as easily be anybody, and often is.  This one just happened to be especially pretty, Stephanie Sigman as Laura Guerrero, a beauty queen contestant that attracted the eye of the drug kingpin, Lino (Noe Hernandez), a shadowy head of the Estrella drug cartel who sees her huddling in the corner during the middle of a raid on a nightclub targeting DEA agents, allowing her to live in order to make use of her in the future.  The film wastes no time getting right into the thick of the action.

This plays out like a Mexican version of a Michael Mann action thriller, shot in ‘Scope using long takes from the constantly probing camera by Hungarian cinematographer Mátyás Erdély, often altering the focus in the same shot, making excellent use of locations and off-screen sound, featuring riveting performances from characters forced to act on impulse when events continually spiral out of control, where the gangsters thrive on this kind of heart racing action, driving trophy Porsches through the streets of Tijuana, but not a teenage girl who is being used for target practice for the first time in her life, where she spends most of the movie close to peeing in her pants from the intense fear, where Lino is continually toying with her, always getting what he wants and then throwing her away until she’s summoned again from out of the blue, a repeating cycle that seemingly can’t be broken.  The overriding theme here is fear and how it plays havoc with ordinary people who are caught up in this phenomenon of gunfights taking place on the city streets in broad daylight, where one of the best edited transitions seen all year finds Laura pinned down in one of the fiercest gunfights you could imagine, using a slow tracking shot where bodies are dropping and bullets are flying, where the sound is deafening, like what it must have been for the Marines trapped in Mogadishu, where she is then whisked away from that reality into a continuing pan through the back wings of a beauty pageant where she is quickly dressed for a runway appearance, and with tears streaming down her face she’s continually reminded to smile.  This kind of mood shift is insane, as you have no time to process the fear, as her life has turned into a human pin cushion of getting stuck repeatedly with having to perform some of the most dangerous drug operations, where she is the center of the storm not knowing which way to turn for safety, as the bullets are flying from every direction, where Laura has to rely on the whims of a cold blooded killer for protection.  While the film is seen exclusively through the terrified eyes of one woman, the larger issues of Mexico’s inability to protect ordinary citizens from being caught in the crossfire of the Drug Wars remain.