Miss Congeniality

The movie has had its share of bouquets and brickbats abroad (with one grumpy criticcalling Bullock a nice girl who needs to go home), and one can see the reason why. On theface of it, this is an average movie, about a female fbi agent's infiltration of abeauty pageant, and the guffaws and laughs that emerge from the situation. But it alsocollides social types—the uncouth, scruffy, cynical, tough girl cop (Sandra Bullock),who hates and badmouths beauty pageants, especially their persistent and dumb desire for'world peace', is herself transformed into a stunning piece of meat for theevent. Her brief is to save the pageant from a possible terrorist attack, but the processgives her the much-needed ego boost—it also makes her confront the kind of person (anugly duckling full of attitude) she was becoming.

These then are the highlights. But what lets the film down is the script. The terroristangle is clumsily handled without much imagination—the main villain's characteremerges suddenly out of the blue, without a build-up. The motive too is reduced to somevague resentment against the way beauty pageants build and downsize individuals. This robsthe movie of a credible plot, which was necessary for a full exploration of Bullock'scharacter. She is after all the misfit who punched boys in class, and loves beating up hercolleagues if they cross the line. But she is also a woman with pressures to go on aproper date and a hidden streak to compete with the more feminine and desirable members ofher gender. Without the solid background that made, say Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan, enacta sophisticated man-woman relationship in Proof of Life, her role tends to meander towardsthe predictable. These gaps are filled occasionally by the supporting cast, which includesMichael Caine as Bullock's silky-smooth but stressed-out gay pageant coach. He savesthe movie by his deadpan wisecracks, and gives an example of how to combine sympathy witha studied nonchalance. A parallel track, involving Benjamin Bratt, Bullock's fuzzylove interest and fbi colleague, is suggested but never fully probed. The movie suffersfrom the kind of crisis that has seized Hollywood comedies of late—at the end of theday you've got to be politically correct and sentimental. This kills the fun—theworst part comes when Bullock tries towards the close to praise the bimbos she is supposedto spoof in typically Hollywoodish, mushy and tacky close-ups.