SO UNDERCOVER
DIRECTOR: Tom Vaughan
CAST: Miley Cyrus, Jeremy Piven, Mike O’Malley, Joshua Bowman
CLASSIFICATION: 10-12 PG LVP
RUNNING TIME: 94 minutes
RATING: 2 stars (out of 5)
Theresa Smith
This was like, so amazeballs. Totes.
Okay, yes, you’ve heard teenagers use those words, but if you actually try and make a movie about a grown-up trying to use them, then you’re simply missing the boat.
So, whatever.
This film may not quite be the death knell for the acting career of Miley Cyrus (pictured), but it is certainly part of the chorus.
For plot, think Miss Congeniality meets Man of the House, but without the charm of the first film’s chemistry between Sandra Bullock and Benjamin Bratt.
For this film, Cyrus is a private investigator, who is sent undercover by the FBI into a sorority house in New Orleans to protect the daughter of an accountant to the mob.
On the plus side, Cyrus got to ride a motorbike, so whoo-hoo, chalk one up to experience for Hannah Montana.
On the down side, there are continuity problems, plot holes and vapidness of the highest order with carwashes, pretty white dresses, rooms full of make-up and midnight pajamas parties.
It may be New Orleans, but do not expect any cool music. Or depth of storyline, for that matter.
All of the air-brushed niceness cribbed from every college movie set in a sorority house ever made, is so Disney it will make your teeth ache. Even with the girls being bitchy to each other, it’s so Cheetah Girls meets how Hanna Montana thought the world should be.
Then add the fact that it plays out like a sitcom, though thankfully minus the canned laughter, but with all the “aw shucks” moments, and well, this is really straight-to- dvd fodder.
It’ has an age restriction of parental guidance for those under 12 because of the profanity (there a couple of OMGs) and some gun waving with a bit of one-sided fist fight for violence, so perhaps this is aimed at a very young crowd who still believes that American college life is pink fluffiness and that Paris Hilton is the be-all and end-all. Yes, I said Paris, I didn’t mention the Kardashians.
And therein lies the problem; the film’s reference points are dated. Plus, it doesn’t have much by way of pacing, wit or comedy.
There’s one bit of reality that sneaks in though, when Cyrus’s character asks “why is this so important to them?” and another character answers “because this is their world”.
This is someone’s world alright, but it’s director Tom Vaughan’s world so it just comes across as false and pointless.