'' Miss Bala '' is loosely based on a real incident , in which 2008 's Miss Sinaloa , Laura Zúñiga , was arrested with suspected gang members in a truck filled with munitions outside Guadalajara , Jalisco . In an interview with Complex Magazine , director Gerardo Naranjo said that he had met Zúñiga , but that " I really did n’t want to go into their psyches . I guess the film has a very strong point-of-view , and we refuse to get into the minds of these guys , because I think that ’s what every other movie does … I wanted to live the experience from the point-of-view of an innocent person . " On its release at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival , '' Miss Bala '' received praise from critics . On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 87 % based on 69 reviews , with an average rating of 7.17 / 10 . The website 's critical consensus reads , " '' Miss Bala '' s subject is loaded enough , but the frantic and muscular filmmaking puts this movie in a whole new league . " At Metacritic , which assigns a weighted mean rating to reviews , the film has an average score of 79 out of 100 , based on 25 critics , indicating " generally favorable reviews "
2011 Cannes Film Festival
2011 Cannes Film Festival
Miss Bala (2011 film)