Armed and Fabulous

Some here may remember Gracie Hart (Sandra Bullock), the FBI agent inserted as a ringer (Miss New Jersey, if I’m not mistaken) into the Miss U.S.A. beauty pageant several years ago to solve a major case. There may be those out there who wondered what she went on to do next. I, unfortunately, was not one of them. But now I know.

It is very difficult for a well-known face to take on a job that requires anonymity, as Gracie discovers in an almost-unsuccessful attempt to stop a bank heist. She’s also been unceremoniously dumped by first-movie love interest SA Eric Matthews (Benjamin Bratt), who apparently wasn’t offered enough to make a comeback. It seems that there’s no place left for her in the FBI, but lo and behold, her boss (Ernie Hudson) wants her to have a book ghost-written and take on a job as the public face of the Bureau. And so we end up with a new, and considerably less likeable, SA Gracie Hart, whose job seems to be to keep her face flawless, her hair straight and kempt, her nose from snorting, and her hand wrapped around a pen while she autographs “her” book about her experiences.

But then, out in Nevada, her friend Cheryl (Heather Burns), the winner of the aforementioned pageant, and pageant host Stan Fields (William Shatner) are kidnapped by a couple of super-massive biker dudes and given only a few days to live, and Hart, along with her FBI-provided bodyguard Sam Fuller (Regina King), head out to Las Vegas to solve the case — which, as you may suppose, does not sit too well with the local SAC (“Everwood“‘s Treat Williams, sans beard).

The movie has its good points, the main one of which is that, after we are introduced to the FBI’s super-swishy makeover artist (Diedrich Bader), we are not subjected to half an hour of makeover, as in the first film, but jump immediately to a wonderful caption: “TEN MONTHS LATER”! The scene in the drag club is also worth watching, though it takes us an inordinate amount of time to get there. Among the bad points are underuse of both William Shatner and, IMHO, Regina King’s character, who has a serious anger-management problem (which, of course, becomes directed at Bullock) which is, however, sadly underplayed.

If you liked the original movie, you’ll probably like this one.