Review of So Undercover (2012) by Calum B — 01 Apr 2013

In her latest attempt to graduate from kids TV starlet to serious Hollywood actress, Miley Cyrus takes on the unlikely role of an all-action private investigator. The film is a strictly formulaic Miss Congeniality/Kindergarten Cop clone, in which the young sleuth is recruited by the FBI for an undercover job in a posh 'n' bitchy sorority house in New Orleans. One presumes that the target audience is teenaged girls who don't care much for high quality cinema... they will probably find something to enjoy in the film. Meanwhile, for the rest of us the film is a long slog which manages to make 94 minutes feel more like 194 minutes.

Private eye Molly Morris (Miley Cyrus) specialises in photographing philandering husbands cheating on their wives in the Dallas area, helped by her dad Sam (Mike O'Malley), an ex-cop who now dabbles in surveillance work. FBI agent Armon (Jeremy Piven) approaches Molly with a new assignment... he needs someone to track down some ledgers that are crucial to an upcoming court case. Apparently, there's a strong possibility that the ledgers are being hidden by a college student named Alex (Lauren McKnight) who is resident in a sorority house in New Orleans. Worse still, Armon is convinced that someone in the house is not who they claim to be and plans on harming Alex if the ledgers don't materialise soon. Initially unwilling to accept the job, Molly is forced to change her mind when her father's gambling spirals out of control, resulting in sizable debts. She switches her identity to 'Brook Stonebridge' and goes undercover as a college student on transfer from Hawaii. The rest of the film deals with Molly/Brook's escapades in the sorority house, where she tries to fit in with her weird, wacky and often downright air-headed sorority sisters. On the one hand, she must find the ledgers and uncover the 'mole' in the house. On the other, she has her own blossoming romance with college biker Nicholas (Joshua Bowman) to contend with, as well as a new-found interest in her college studies.

There's little to say about So Undercover - it knows its target audience and gives them what want and expect of a film of this kind. Beyond that, it has no wider aspirations as a piece of cinema. The story is by-the-numbers in the extreme, with obvious red herrings and lots of lame dialogue. The attempts to give Cyrus an action-woman makeover are embarrassing to say the least, although once the action moves to her undercover assignment in the sorority house she does at least look more slightly more suited to the role. The film was pencilled in for an autumn 2012 release at American cinemas but was later shelved and sent direct-to-DVD... it did manage a brief tenure at UK cinemas, but disappeared extremely quickly. Films bomb for a reason... and upon watching So Undercover you won't need to be much of a detective to figure out that this one simply isn't very good.