Theatrical Review of Untraceable

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The following review of "Untraceable" includes spoilers for the film. Proceed at your own risk.

Every couple of years, film tackles a perceived real life problem and exploits it. I´m not talking about wars or social causes; I´m talking technology or business. Remember "Antitrust," the 2001 warning against computer companies? Or how about "Cellular" and its near preaching about the potential of cell phones? Well, here comes "Untraceable," a movie in the same vein as the others: the use of tech against the populace, a warning of sorts…and ten years too late.

In the cyber crimes unit of the FBI, Jennifer Marsh (Diane Lane, a dead ringer for Mariska Hargitay) gets a tip about a new website featuring, at first, a dead cat. As human beings begin to disappear-and die-on the site, the stakes are raised. But how do you find a computer wizard who is playing in his own backyard?

I´m not quite sure what ran through the heads of the five credited writers of "Untraceable" which led a promising story into a dark abyss of nothingness in the last ten minutes. Maybe they ran out of time to craft a proper finale. Maybe something got cut in the editing room. I don´t know. But whatever did happen, it manages to suck the life out of the entire production. As if it weren´t bad enough most of the movie feels like behind the scenes on "To Catch a Predator," we´re introduced to our main character during an investigation. An investigation which takes a maximum of five minutes, including exposition. An investigation where Marsh pinpoints an identity thief, calls the local police and then correctly guesses there is a youngster in the house. Um, hello? Granted, she´s good…but that good? If she was, then this movie would have been over in half an hour.

But this beginning is something everyone forgets about, too, in this thinly veiled "Just Say No to Computer Crime" flick. They even jettison proper police work. When you know the identity of two different victims, the FIRST thing you do is try to find a connection. Friends, family, work, associates, interests-you get the idea. For whatever reason, no one in the crack Portland FBI office thinks of this until it´s entirely too late.

Wanna talk even more top notch police work? Marsh, apparently the lead investigator in the cyber crimes unit, was her home connected to a wireless network. Her home computer has access to work files. Both of which get hacked, unsurprisingly. Her actions, words and experiences don´t mesh together as they should through the movie, this being but one example.

One thing to watch out for in "Untraceable" are small throwaway lines, characters or scenes. Keep an eye (and ear) on Melanie as well as two detectives looking around Jennifer´s garage. In the first instance, a trick leads directly to a fellow agent´s death. (Does anyone really buy the voice Griffin Dowd hears on his phone is a real person? Of course it´s fake and a trap.) The latter, sadly, thinks it is being coy in setting up the climax, yet is so obviously transparent as nothing more than a story point it´s laughable. (Tell me director Gregory Hoblit doesn´t make the finale so easy to see coming a third grader could do it. I dare you.)

Some people will compare the bloody "Saw" franchise to this film and, in certain respects, they´d be right to. For as many inventive and creative deaths are featured in the horror films, "Untraceable" comes up with an idea they haven´t thought of yet: the more live stream views there are, the worse the punishment gets. For instance, with every passing internet viewer, sulfuric acid is added to a tub of water, burning a man. Or some others which are too delicious to spoil here. But, in the end, even "Saw" has a better rationale for killing than the dopey teenager in "Untraceable." Jigsaw, in his heart of hearts, wants his victims to be better people, see the error of their ways and repent. Owen Reilly (Joseph Cross) doesn´t have as altruistic a reason: he wants people to suffer online because his father´s suicide was replayed online for everyone to see. So he kills people associated with that event. And some others who have nothing at all to do with it…except tangentially. As he puts it, Marsh and her colleagues allowed his father´s name to be smeared in the virtual world and made him relive the horror every day.

I felt like standing up and asking him if he ever heard of the First Amendment. Ya know, freedom of speech and so on. Aside from the law, the reporters and news station covering and airing the suicide (not to mention the subsequent pirating of the footage) did not kill his father; Owen is killing people.

One of the great joys in cop shows is figuring out which of the people we´ve met on screen is the killer, following the connections until we hit the inevitable conclusion. Here, we don´t meet Owen for a fair while into the action and we can´t connect the dots until the cops do. Instead of being able to "play along" in the hunt, we have to be by standards, passive instead of active. And that´s actively boring.

"Untraceable" feels half baked, a good idea buried in 30 minutes of filler story material. Diane Lane and the rest of the cast do as good a job as they can be expected to do, considering the holes in the story. She presents herself as a take charge woman unafraid of battling anyone over any issue. In the tender moments with her daughter (of which there are too few), she manages to balance intensity with genuine love. The directing isn´t even a problem, though if we had to see another aerial view of Portland, I was going to scream. One is enough for any movie, but we have at least two, if not three. Long, nearly nauseating looks at downtown Portland, seemingly downtrodden and broken.

I can´t in any conscious recommend "Untraceable." Most of its misfires occur late in the narrative, yet they cast a pall over the entire production. I can imagine this being the first draft of the screenplay, but shooting material? There are still kinks to be worked out. As such, it gets a 4 out of 10.

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