Untraceable (**)

Here’s another tale of a serial killer who likes to toy with the police, the novelty being a killer who uses hits on his web site to trigger the mechanism of death. Needless to say, a bullet to the head is not nearly cruel enough, and, just like the tens of millions of viewers who log on to the killer’s site, we get to watch as, among other things, a cat suffocate. Never mind what happens to the people.

Directed by Gregory Hoblit, whose last movie was the fine thriller Fracture, the movie’s by no means unwatchable, thus depriving me of a better oppotunity to use that pun in my pan. Diane Lane, as the widowed computer expert who tries to track the killer, gives a better performance than this exploitation movie requires. The parts involving the killer’s use of programming tricks to conceal his on-line identity interested me. But cheap thrills are the primary focus, and the story devolves into the usual absurdities. The killer, who’s identified halfway through, is ridiculously competent until, like Lane’s heroine, he makes a mistake at the exact moment it becomes convenient for the plot.

Cynical enough to predict that a web site allowing users to participate in torture would in weeks become America’s most popular (15,000,000 simultaneous users!), the movie pretends to deplore the media’s willingness to turn tragedy into entertainment, all the while turning torture into entertainment, and mediocre entertainment at that. At least we are not encouraged to sympathize with the killers, as in parts of the Saw movies.

IMDB link

reviewed 1/27/08