The most revolting thing about “Untraceable” is not the parade of do-it-yourself torture, although that is bad enough. No, the worst thing about this stupid movie is the way it cynically recycles the trendiest ideas from other bad movies.
Most of them involving torture.
Those borrowings are already out of fashion, leaving “Untraceable” looking very stale indeed. It’s a police procedural mixed with Internet suspense mixed with “torture porn,” sort of like an Ashley Judd-in-peril picture crossed with “Saw.”
Evidently Ashley Judd was not available, so Diane Lane takes the disagreeable lead in this one. She plays a Portland police officer, recently and irrelevantly widowed, assigned to the case of a sicko who broadcasts his slow torture of victims live over the Internet.
The twist is that the more hits his Web site attracts, the faster his victim dies. Which leaves plenty of room for lectures about our dehumanized society and the danger of online activity.
So you see, it’s that dad-blamed Internet that these young folks are all so gol-durned fired-up about that’s at fault. Imagine, flocking to watch images of torture … wait, that describes the movie audience at “Untraceable.”
This is an interesting way of flattering your audience. Hypocritical, too, considering “Untraceable” serves up plenty of flayed flesh, including charming scenes of men bled to death and fried by sunlamps.
Director Gregory Hoblit is an old hand at cop shows and the occasional movie thriller, including last year’s enjoyable “Fracture.” With this one, he seems to have thrown in the towel, defeated by the ludicrous script.
He certainly hasn’t bothered much with the actors. Lane practically vanishes, and Billy Burke (sharp last year in “Feast of Love” and “Fracture”) and Colin Hanks (son of Tom) are similarly stuck.
Hoblit didn’t use any sunlamps with his cast, who all look washed-out and terrible. (The movie isn’t an advertisement for Portland.) Kudos to Diane Lane for forgoing the make-up and trying to look more credible than, say, Angie Dickinson’s “Police Woman.” But with a script this dumb, why bother?
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