Miss Congeniality is a 2000 comedy film/thriller film directed by Donald Petrie, starring Sandra Bullock. A sequel, Armed and Fabulous was released in 2005.

The cast:

• Sandra Bullock — Gracie Hart
• Michael Caine — Victor Melling
• Benjamin Bratt — Eric Matthews
• Candice Bergen — Kathy Morningside
• Ernie Hudson — Harry McDonald
• William Shatner — Stan Fields
• Heather Burns — Cheryl Frasier

The plot of Miss Congeniality is centered on Sandra Bullock's character, an FBI agent who goes undercover in a beauty pageant in order to ferret out wrongdoers. Specifically, the FBI has been investigating a serial bomber who has indicated his next strike will be at the pageant. Bullock's agent (Gracie Hart) is a feminist who is not traditionally attractive; part of the in-joke is the turning of her into a drop-dead gorgeous woman, contestant Gracie Lou Freebush — with the same tomboyish habits she had before said makeover.

This is definitely a Bullock vehicle, including several inside jokes, such as her reaction to the gun-toting Texans (she actually lives in Austin, Texas), or the hideous Tyrolean dress she wears for the talent competition (she visited Austria for significant periods of time as a child).

The movie has somewhat been cited as an excuse to show off Bullock's body in revealing outfits.

In Germany, as well as Norway, the movie was published under the English title "Miss Undercover" (as the meaning of undercover would be better known), and in Italy under the English title "Miss Detective".

Mistakes

• Miss Rhode Island (Cheryl Frasier, played by Heather Burns) gets into the finals at the beauty pagaent. As her 'talent', she twirls batons: but with a twist, they are set on fire. After the performance, the soot and marks that were on the end of the batons previously, disappear as she walks off stage.
• In a possibly intentional move, every character's hotel room is room 103.
• Candice Bergen mistakenly calls the character of Frank Tobin by his real name - "Steve" as she is trying to open a bottle of pain killers prior to the pageant.
• In a scene when Bullock comes to the hotel where the pageants lodges the character of Benjamin Bratt in a truck van says "Operation Thong has commenced" in a possible reference to the Strippergates "operation G-String"

External links

2000 films | Comedy films | Thriller films | American films | Fictional Misses, Mrs., and Ms. | Fish out of water films

Miss Undercover | Miss Congeniality | Miss Agent | Miss Secret Agent