Miss Congeniality (2000)

Directed by Donald Petrie. Starring Sandra Bullock, Michael Caine, Benjamin Bratt, Heather Burns, Candice Bergen, Ernie Hudson, William Shatner, Deirdre Quinn, Wendy Raquel Robinson, Steve Monroe, Melissa De Sousa, Asia De Marcos. [PG-13]

High-concept nonsense rendered as a star vehicle for Bullock to play Gracie Hart, a slobbish tomboy FBI agent who gets a makeover and lessons in culture/etiquette so she can go undercover as a beauty pageant contestant and try to unearth a terrorist threatening to bomb the annual event. Not entirely unwatchable by virtue of the sheer charisma of the main actors, including Caine as her appalled coach; he doesn’t play into the most obvious effete mannerisms, and instead pin-pricks the material while masking any contempt he’s harboring for the stereotyped role. The script, credited to Marc Lawrence, Katie Ford, and Caryn Lucas, is limp and forced, failing to find any manner of satirical edge to the sort of subject that makes for a very easy and worthy target. A sequel came five years later.

38/100