RELEASED IN 2012 and directed by Tom Vaughan, "So Undercover" stars Miley Cyrus as a teen private investigator who's hired by an FBI agent (Jeremy Piven) to go undercover at a sorority. Mike O'Malley plays her dad, Josh Bowman her potential beau and Matthew Settle her professor. This was my first exposure to Miley as an actress (I've never seen Hanna Montana, for instance) and she's effective for this kind of role, a formidable no-nonsense detective with wit and feminine charisma. I'm not a fan of hers in any sense, but she's easily the most all-around attractive female in the cast, which is saying a lot since the events take place at a sorority. Or perhaps it's saying that the rest of the female cast is subpar as far as sex appeal goes. Other than that, they're all just fine. Bottom Line: This is a fun detective drama/adventure at a university highlighted by Cyrus as the protagonist; nothing more, but nothing less. The movie runs 94 minutes and was shot entirely in Louisiana. Writers: Allan Loeb & Steven Pearl. ADDITIONAL CAST: Eloise Mumford (Sasha), Megan Park (Cotton), Lauren McKnight (Alex), Kelly Osbourne (Becky), Alexis Knapp (Taylor) and Morgan Calhoun (Hunter). GRADE: B-

Molly Morris (Miley Cyrus) is a private investigator working with her dad ex-Dallas cop Sam (Mike O'Malley). FBI Agent Armon Ranford (Jeremy Piven) is working a case against the Georgian mafia and he needs her to watch over college girl Alex Patrone (Lauren McKnight). Alex is the daughter of an important witness and she may be holding some evidence. Sam continues to gamble and Molly needs money to pay off the debt. The grimy Molly has to infiltrate a sorority.This starts off as somewhat serious. That could actually work but it goes kind of silly. The girls are either Bs or really stupid. This feels like there are two movies trying to come out on top. It's not silly enough to be Disney teen frivolity. It's definitely not serious but the camera sometimes use shaky hand held style. The styles are all wrong and conflict with each other. It's like somebody thought that Hannah Montana needs to be filmed by Paul Greengrass. If they wanted to do a realistic movie, that would be interesting to see. It would be like Veronica Mars goes to college. Also the name of the movie is horrible and somebody should be fired for it.

I watched the movie on a Sunday morning right after a bad night. It cheered me up and that's when I understood that although not great, its message is simple - entertainment. If you are looking for an easy movie, you have arrived at the right choice. Right at the beginning of the film, I got put off the main character. Somewhere in the middle, I fell in love with her. I'm not going to summarize it for you, other people have done it already and I leave it to you to discover by yourself. What I would like to say is that if you are looking for an easy movie to spend a couple of hours, So Undercover is great. It follows the themes of Miss Congeniality and Legally Blonde. If you like any of the them, you will enjoy So Undercover,too.

This film immediately becomes fodder for every comedian and hate filled blogger in the world. Miley Cyrus is an obvious target for them though I never really understood why. The biggest issue with So Undercover is certainly not her, but rather how extremely by the book, predictable and cookie cutter this movie is. It copies a handful of films and mixes them together and spits them back out at you. Still if you can get past the cake made from Miss Congeniality/House Bunny mix then you'll get a few laughs and chuckles and actually mostly enjoy yourself. It is very nearly vapid but sometimes I think...who cares. Sometimes a movie can be pure entertainment and mindless vapid fun is okay. The performances are decent and the story is good enough to keep you entertained. The script is surprisingly thorough and creates some fun and good characters.I don't hold the hatred that everyone else seems to towards Miley Cyrus. I think she is very talented and I think its unfortunate that the media has pushed her into revamping her image so much. She does a decent job in this film as Molly. It is a little bit of a stretch to call her "tough" and "street smart" but you know she actually does pull it off pretty well. Sandra Bullock she ain't but for the purpose of this movie, she is good. Jeremy Piven is simply hilarious and excellent in his role as the FBI agent who sets Cyrus up with her undercover gig. He has some great lines and really steals the show with his performance. He makes the film that much better. Joshua Bowman is the typical romantic male lead. That being said, he does a good job and him and Cyrus have solid chemistry together. His character is so predictable but he still does his best given what he has. The girls of the sorority are all decent but realistically they are really all the same. None of them truly stand out except maybe the small role played by Kelly Osbourne because her character was at least a little different. I felt like Lauren McKnight's character should have had more development and more scenes but she is really the same as the rest of the girls in terms of character. Mike O'Malley is perfect and really well done as Molly's doting father. More of him would have been good as well but he's great in what he is in.You have to know what you're dealing with going into So Undercover. I mean I had very low expectations and essentially I knew what I was in for. It does deliver exactly what you would expect looking and reading the cover. So you can't say your expectations won't be met unless they are unrealistic. Tom Vaughan is a bit of a strange choice for directing this film. This is definitely his first of this type of genre but he seems to have a good handle on what its all about. I'm not sure the demographic they were hoping for with the movie though. I think it would certainly appeal to Miley's younger fans (13 and under) but there is a fair bit of bad language too which was unnecessary if they wanted it to find a popular demographic. Basically, you can't say you will hate this movie because just by reading about it and looking at the cover you should know whether this is for you or not. It wasn't a great movie by any stretch of the imagination but it was acceptable and fun and entertained me for an hour and a half. 6.5/10