Untraceable Review
by [email protected] (sdo230 AT gmail DOT com)January 29th, 2008
Untraceable
reviewed by Sam Osborn
Like a glorified episode of "Law & Order," Untraceable works less like a movie and more like an hour of television. And it's not Must-See TV. It'd be the sort of show you could doze off to late at night while your Tivo whirs calmly beside you. Director Gregory Hoblit's previous picture, Fracture--the courtroom Ryan Gosling engine--fell into the same unremarkable stupor. Carrying a similarly beguiling premise, Untraceable queries the legions of modern technology to compile this new lackluster tale.
As a cyber-cop for the FBI, single widower Jennifer Marsh (Diane Lane) trolls the oceans of interweb for net illegalities. In her searches, she comes upon the red-flagged site KillWithMe.com. As its title suggests, this new evolution of shock-fare asks audiences to take part in a live, broadcasted murder. The victim is gagged and bound to a torture device that intensifies pain depending on the number of active, live viewers. The more people watching, the quicker the victim dies. Like the business mogul who kills his wife and confesses to the murder, as in Fracture, Untraceable's premise is nothing if not promising.
Because such a nefarious deed is entirely realistic, the implications of such a web site have a real terror to them, in theory. Many people would tune in to watch a man murdered. Admit it, you'd be curious. The step from exploitation smut--as in the popularity of couples posting explicit videos of themselves online--to exploitation smut involving actual death is not a far one. It's a baby step considering the number of people who web-witnessed the beheading of an American soldier months ago. Or the execution of Saddam Hussein. Some 30.28 million watch "American Idol" last week, and those numbers are down from last season. Reality television in all its increments of exploitation is an obvious topic in American culture. But it's a stale topic, unless it's put to something as direly sinister as that which Untraceable poses.
The film's killer makes the American public, in audience numbers as broad as "American Idol's," his partial accomplice. And if we're the executors in this killer's master scheme, shouldn't there be a focus on us as a people? We are the character most interesting to Untraceable's story. But Untraceable doesn't bother with us. Its interest is in containment. The script seems wary of casting too wide a net, wanting only to do with the characters involved closest with the investigation. And disappointingly, these are the people most at grip with their senses. They're the ones who actually would not click to KillWithMe.com. They're the least interesting characters inside the film's story.
And without the cultural sub-text, Untraceable is nothing but a cyber- version of "Law & Order." If they knock on enough doors, talk to enough suspects, and sift through enough manila folders, the good guys will prevail. Diane Lane puts forth a notable effort, trying her best with the clunky mother-daugher material when she's not nerd-speaking in front of her monitor. And Mr. Hoblit directs with a passably standard flavor, gliding around the beautiful Portland sets and moving his camera as much as was probably physically possible for his crane operator. The film is just minor letdown. Its final resting place is where it'll truly prove its worth: on late night television, on a TBS, TNT, USA, or some other cable network. It'll replace the likes of Jurassic Park III or Fever Pitch, programming for insomniacs bumping about their hundreds of channels at three in the morning. But by then all those people will probably just be online, tuning in for just the sort of thing Untraceable warned us about.
Sam Osborn
Untraceable: Directed by Gregory Hoblit, Written by Robert Fyvolent, Mark Brinker, Allison Burnett. Starring Diane Lane, Colin Hanks, Billy Burke, Joseph Cross. Rated R for grisly violence and torture, and some language.
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