Continuity mistake: During the swimsuit preliminaries, there is a sequence where we see several contestants on a small stand in the foreground and the next contestant to come up to the stand in the background. Well after we see Cheryl, Miss Rhode Island on the stand, there's someone else behind her ready to come up right away because she's next in line, but instead the next contestant is Gracie. (01:04:10)
Miss Congeniality (2000)
141 mistakes
Directed by: Donald Petrie
Starring: Michael Caine, Sandra Bullock, William Shatner, Benjamin Bratt, Ernie Hudson, Candice Bergen
Victor Melling: There are no words.
Trivia: At the preliminaries, Stan asks of Miss Rhode Island, "Describe your perfect date" and Cheryl answers oddly, "April 25th." Marc Lawrence the screenwriter says in the DVD commentary that it's an actual answer given by a contestant in a pageant, that he found in research for the film. (01:05:40)
Question: When McDonald tells Hart "If you wanna stay, stay. But as a private citizen. Turn in your badge and your gun." Did he just fire her? Suspend her? Ask for her gun and badge so that if anything happened, she wouldn't give the FBI a bad name?
Answer: Somewhere between your second and third guess, in my opinion. Firing would require a far more complex due process under Federal rules. But McDonald certainly has the authority to determine what missions will and won't be pursued under the authority of the FBI. He's essentially telling her that this is a rogue action on her part, and she may not use her status as an FBI agent, nor her government issued weapon, to pursue it. She also won't be paid for her time and efforts in the process.
Michael Albert