UNTRACEABLE

Reviewed by Sam Hatch

Gregory Hoblit's Untraceable is a wi-fi era update of 8MM, where the demise of snuffees can be watched guilt-free on web browsers and the snuffers can ferret out all of your personal information with the click of a mouse button. It's also surprisingly capable in its depiction of computers, with a minimum of the cheesy, 'futuristic' whirring sounds that typically accompany the act of web browsing in Hollywood pictures.

The script (by Mark Brinker, Alison Burnett and Robert Fyvolent) also refrains from too much expository dialogue, but regardless of how 'leet' you are, you get the gist that Diane Lane's character Jennifer Marsh and her nerdy partner Griffin Dowd (Colin Hanks) are capable FBI agents. They work in Portland, Oregon as part of an Internet crime task force, and early in the film they crack down on an identity thief before tripping upon the grim creepiness of a website called killwithme.com.

At first a small cat is the sole victim as viewers get their thrills from this sanguine variant of YouTube. Jennifer discovers that the site's creator is a deviously tricky feller, capable of hiding forever behind an endless supply of mirror sites. Marsh's boss (Peter Lewis) is surprisingly slow of wit throughout, and his only suggestion is to drop the website from their radar screens.

Faster than you can say “didn't see that coming!” the page is up again, though now with a human being in the hot seat. This garners even more attention, which is potentially deadly for the victim. You see, with each new visitor to the site, the murderous machinations at play (heat lamps, acidic compounds, etc.) increase in severity until reaching lethal proportions.

While the storyline may seem relatively familiar to viewers of Law and Order SVU, the kill fest in this plot is no hoax. To prove this, the killer leaves the bodies of the deceased in places where they will be discovered quickly. As expected, the word spreads like wildfire and with each new victim the site's hits keep growing bigger and bigger.

So it's up to Jennifer and her cyber-crew to uncover the slippery slaughterer before the next kill. She's reluctantly partnered with the head detective on the case Eric Box (Billy Burke), who is immediately repelled by her usage of the word 'subject' to describe the killer (he prefers saucier terminology). We're led to believe that this clash of personalities will lead to more romantic territory, especially once it's revealed that Jennifer is a longing single mother slash widow with a severe lack of hunky males in her life.

Gender is one of the film's strong points, or to be more accurate the subjugation of cinematic gender clichés. Here the vulnerable online dater stereotype is instead played by Colin Hanks. Marsh is more akin to an obsessed male careerist such as William Petersen's character from Manhunter. In fact, her anticipated attraction to Box is rather downplayed in the script. She's no damsel in distress, either – which is a remarkably refreshing turn of events.

The one thing that I wish this film did better was to delve into what it mentally means to devote that much of your life to wading through grime and filth. Marsh and Dowd spend much of their day engaging in illegal activities in the name of catching criminals, wallowing in an electronic mire. There's a brief moment where Jennifer's daughter nearly glimpses the gruesome image of a man bleeding to death, but it pretty much stops there.

There is however quite a bit of material detailing the fact that Marsh's devotion to her job is having a negative impact on her family life – since she's repeatedly forced to leave her daughter in the care of her patient mother (Mary Beth Hurt). This devotion comes to bite her on the ass when the killer himself becomes interested in the policewoman hounding his every move. He soon begins psychologically terrorizing both Jennifer and her family.

There's actually a surprising amount of thematic material found within the film, beginning with the nature of snuff itself. This is nothing new, given that the Faces of Death series was such a huge hit at video rental stores during the 80's. Part of the draw is the 'is it real or not' buzz, but there's nothing so disturbing in this film as the casual comments of bloodlust shown during reveals of the message board that accompanies killwithme.com.

The film asks if those who believe the material to be fake are any less guilty than the people who would love nothing more than to see somebody experience an excruciating death. Eventually, this question spills off of the screen, and asks the audience of the film to cheer as an example of brutal violence is delivered. It ultimately wants us all to feel as if we're accomplices to murder.

This wagging finger extends into an accusatory diatribe against American fascination with death – from kids looking up gruesome photographs online to people watching streaming video of politically motivated beheadings. This eventually leads to the well-mined arena of wondering whether or not executions will be publicly televised as a prime time reality show. It's not a new argument, but mixing it with current computer technology does give it a shot at capturing the zeitgeist.

Other moments of the film are less successful. The script often fails to integrate foreshadowing with subtlety, and telegraphs most of its twists from the word go. When one character casually mentions that a victim should blink in Morse code, you know damn well that it will occur later on. And one character's eventual demise is painfully evident from just about their first appearance on screen.

There's also a strange moment where Jennifer does something remarkably stupid after we just saw her capably handling a similar situation moments before. Of course without this lapse of judgment the finale would be much harder to stage, but it felt like a writer's copout to me.

And once again we're left with the Hollywood version of the serial killer, where there's always a grandiose moral agenda and social commentary fueling their actions. There's also the tired use of complex gadgetry, unlikely contraptions and time-consuming setups. Real killers don't work that way, and while Se7en was able to get away with it, I'm pretty much done with these films that are afraid to face the fact that the real murderers have simpler motives and are much, much scarier.

On the plus side, the film scores high points for avoiding any use of "the killer that's also one of the FBI team members" (sorry if you were hoping that was case and I just spoiled it!). It's also nice that the identity of the killer is revealed about halfway through, and this knowledge in no way eases the tension evoked through the numerous infernal scenarios taking place in an unknown basement. There was also a pretty cool bit of final social commentary at the very end that throws in a little twist, but I cannot say more.

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