Is it possible that Miley Cyrus has found a film that could do worse damage to her career than LOL? Judging by the irritating new trailer for the poorly-titled So Undercover, she may have done just that. When the highlight is a slip-of-the-tongue joke about "busting a cat in your ass", then there's a major problem.
I don't know if co-writers Allan Loeb and Steven Pearl watched Miss Congeniality once too often, or if they were given a mandate to ripoff 21 Jump Street, but they seem to have borrowed quite liberally from both. Cyrus plays a young private investigator who is hired by the FBI to go undercover on a college campus to protect the life of a witness. But first she has to undergo a She's All That-style makeover from the "tough" chick she was before, and be able to fit in the world of perky sorority sisters. Cue up the wacky fish out of water hijinks and generic romantic entanglements with random fraternity brothers.
Short of the hilarity of Cyrus trying to pass herself off as a bad ass cop, the laughs are few and far between. But there's a lot of talent involved behind the camera, which makes me wonder if somebody perhaps had a major tax bill due or something. Loeb is a halfway decent screenwriter who wrote Things We Lost in the Fire and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. The film is directed by Tom Vaughan, who gave us James McAvoy's breakout turn in Starter for 10. What's going on, guys?
Co-starring Kelly Osbourne, Jeremy Piven, Mike O'Malley, Autumn Reeser, Matthew Settle, and Lauren McKnight, So Undercover opens in the U.K. on December 7th. Are we looking at a straight-to-DVD release here in the States?
