movie film review | chris tookey
 
     
     
 

So Undercover

 (12A§)
© Warner Bros. - all rights reserved
     
  So Undercover Review
Tookey's Rating
1 /10
 
Average Rating
3.86 /10
 
Starring
Miley Cyrus , Jeremy Piven , Kelly Osbourne
Full Cast >
 

Directed by: Tom Vaughan
Written by: Allan Loeb, Steven Pearl

 
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Released: 2012
   
Genre: THRILLER
COMEDY
   
Origin: US
   
Colour: C
   
Length: 94
 
 


 
So over.
Reviewed by Chris Tookey



This terrible turkey that may serve a useful cultural function in being the last nail in the coffin of Miley Cyrus’s long-dead acting career.

The former singing star plays a small-town photographer improbably recruited by a man from the FBI (Jeremy Piven) to go undercover in a snooty college sorority.

Ms Cyrus (pictured) gives a performance that is almost as charmless as her turn in The Last Song, a stinker she made two years ago. Our heroine is meant to be a down-to-earth working-class gal, but most of the time looks bored and unimpressed, like a sullen celebrity with an unwarranted sense of her own superiority.

Many child stars have found success as adult actors, but there’s no danger of Ms Cyrus’s career surviving into her thirties. Her face is flat and inexpressive, and she is starting to bear a disturbing resemblance to North Korea’s chubby dictator, Kim Jong Un.

British director Tom Vaughan made the promising comedy, Starter For Ten, but if this is the best that Hollywood is offering him, he should return home immediately.

No one could have made sense of this script, which could be analysed at film school for showing how not to do it. The plot moves in ever more ludicrous directions, with some of the clumsiest exposition ever committed to celluloid. It attempts without the slightest success to steer a path between gripping thriller and sentimental teenage comedy. The twist makes nonsense of everything that has gone before – which is painfully redundant, since none of it made sense anyway.

After this, the writing partnership of Allan Loeb (whose previous crimes against humanity include The Dilemma with Vince Vaughn and Just Go For It, starring Adam Sandler) and Steven Pearl (who has no previous feature-film offences but is a lifelong friend of Loeb) broke up. That’s a good thing for everyone concerned, especially audiences.

All the characters are demeaning caricatures, including one dumb blonde who proclaims proudly “I don’t know what insipid means” No? Then she should watch this movie.


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