A look at the illegal street racing culture in America with lots of real live action.

It's a good thing Sandra Bullock knows her strengths and weaknesses, because without Bullock as star and producer, Miss Congeniality would be an insufferable mess as opposed to being a mildly enjoyable trifle that is custom-made for Bullock's established screen persona. Here she plays nerdy FBI agent Gracie Hart, who is given the horrific pseudonym Gracie Lou Freebush (one example of the film's juvenile tendencies) when assigned to infiltrate a beauty pageant to investigate threats of a terrorist attack. Transforming Bullock from frumpy to stunning is a piece of cake (although she gives pageant coach Michael Caine a run for his money), so the film's premise is trivial at best. More enjoyable is her character's uncouth disdain for pageant contestants and her mistaken perception that they're all a bunch of bimbos. The film nicely charts Gracie's realisation that her pageant makeover provides a much-needed ego boost. In addition to Caine's effortless scene-stealing, pageant host William Shatner and organiser Candice Bergen are smart choices for comedic support (Shatner is a perfect Bert Parks wannabe), but the film desperately needs a credible foundation for its comedy to really pay off. None of the plotting is as smart as predecessors like Beverly Hills Cop in combining procedure with laughs. That leaves Bullock to carry the burden of a comedy that barely works in her favour. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

Miss Julie is a claustrophobic class study set within a 19th-century Count's kitchen. It chronicles the events of one midsummer night when the housemistress--an obstinate and confused Julie (Saffron Burrows)--is beaten in a round of sexual gaming with footman Peter Mullan. Based on the play by August Strindberg, the film maintains a constant sense of theatre by only having three speaking parts (the other coming from Maria Doyle Kennedy as Christine, the long-suffering cook and fiancée), just one set and a penchant for hand-held camerawork by director Mike Figgis. Known for his experimental approach to storytelling, this is technically a predecessor to Figgis' Timecode, since the all-important rape scene is conveyed through a disorientating split-screen technique. He'd worked with fellow Brit Burrows before on The Loss of Sexual Innocence and One Night Stand, but gives the gal with the outsized cheekbones top billing here and is rewarded with a thoroughly rounded performance. Backed by the director's own musical score, this melodrama has a very personal feel to it. --Paul Tonks