Untraceable may prove to be unwatchable for some

With a twisted villain and gruesome murders, the movie Untraceable paints humanity’s dark side on the silver screen in one of the more thought provoking suspense movies.

Jennifer Marsh, played by Diane Lane, is an FBI agent in the cybercrime unit in Portland, Ore. Her co-worker and sidekick is Griffin Dowd, played by Colin Hanks, a loveable computer geek who finds both criminals and dates online.

Tracking down techie bad guys by night and being a mother by day, Marsh’s life seems rather routine until she receives a tip about a Web site, www.killwithme.com. Upon visiting the Web site, she finds a live stream of a kitten trapped on a sticky rat trap. Days later, she logs back on to find the kitten dead. And so begins the cat and, um, rat chase.

Animal cruelty quickly turns into the Saw-like live killing of two-legged victims. Only after the crime unit sees the scrolling text—“The more that watch, the faster he dies”—at the bottom of the screen does it realize what it is facing. The American public and its sickening curiosity have been turned into the murder weapon.

A somewhat confusing scene filled with technical jargon informs the viewer that the killer mirrors the IP addresses of exploited servers so that he is “untraceable.” But don’t be fooled. Like any good villain, this killer has a method to his madness, which is revealed in the thrilling, yet maybe too gift-wrapped ending.

As for cinematography, think a mix of Law and Order: SVU, Saw and Hostel, with lighting similar to the latter two; the film employs low lighting, dark basements illuminated by green fluorescence and a grainy film quality for the murder scenes. While maintaining a moderate level of suspense throughout the film with great direction by Gregory Hoblit (Fracture, Frequency, Primal Fear), Untraceable is not a Silence of the Lambs. The killer, however, does exhibit mannerisms eerily similar to Hannibal Lecter.

But the killer’ is one of maybe two characters whose background information is provided. This caused the film to fall flat at times, leaving Marsh as the glue holding everyone together. As a result, some of the dialogue was shallow. At the end Marsh comments that she is “not good at losing people.” Who is?
Besides the sometimes corny dialogue, Untraceable is an intense movie. With an ending that really draws attention to society’s Internet-enabled depravity, Untraceable is a film worth watching, as long as you don’t have a weak stomach.