This silly cyber-thriller dies a quick death, whether or not you log on.
Untraceable (2008)
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Reviews Counted:139
Fresh:20
Rotten:119
Average Rating:4.2/10
Consensus: Despite Diane Lane's earnest effort, Untraceable manages to be nothing more than a run-of-the-mill thriller with a hypocritical message.
Rated: 18 [See Full Rating] for some prolonged sequences of strong gruesome violence, and language.
Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Theatrical Release:29-02-2008
Synopsis: Directed by Gregory Hoblit (FRACTURE, PRIMAL FEAR), UNTRACEABLE follows F.B.I. cybercrimes specialist Jennifer Marsh (Diane Lane) as she attempts to track down a serial killer who brazenly displays... Directed by Gregory Hoblit (FRACTURE, PRIMAL FEAR), UNTRACEABLE follows F.B.I. cybercrimes specialist Jennifer Marsh (Diane Lane) as she attempts to track down a serial killer who brazenly displays his murderous deeds on the Internet. Aided by fellow agent Griffin Dowd (Colin Hanks) and local detective Eric Box (Billy Burke), Marsh tenaciously hunts for the elusive criminal in rainy Pacific Northwest settings, but as she closes in on her target, he deviously finds ways to get closer to her, all the while killing his victims in increasingly faster fashion. Clearly referencing a number of renowned thrillers--most notably the SAW films, SEVEN, and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS--UNTRACEABLE is far from an original cinematic exercise. However, Lane's steely, smart, and beautiful heroine ably anchors the film, which also benefits from its appropriately gloomy Portland, Oregon, backdrop. As with any effective suspense movie, the thrill is in the chase, with the cold-blooded killer proving to be quite adept at disguising his real location, even as his disturbingly popular site remains prominently on the web (hence the picture's title). Though not up to par with classics such as SEVEN and SILENCE, UNTRACEABLE is a well-crafted genre film that easily eclipses other like-minded fare, particularly FEARDOTCOM and the SAW sequels. [More]
Starring: Diane Lane, Billy Burke, Colin Hanks, Joseph Cross
Starring: Diane Lane, Billy Burke, Colin Hanks, Joseph Cross, Mary Beth Hurt
Director: Gregory Hoblit
Director: Gregory Hoblit
Screenwriter: Robert Fyvolent, Mark R. Brinker
Story: Robert Fyvolent, Mark R. Brinker, Allison Burnett
Producer: Steven Pearl, Andy Cohen, Tom Rosenberg, Gary Lucchesi, Hawk Koch
Composer: Christopher Young
Studio: Screen Gems
Reviews for Untraceable
[T]he makers of Untraceable have come up with an effective solution to the problem of Internet piracy: Make films that nobody would want to pirate.
The movie flirts with snuff-film torture porn, then has the cast-iron nerve to segue into preachy tut-tutting about what a society of voyeurs we are.
Takes the two most cliched types of serial killer movie and tries to fuse them together to create a spark of something original - it doesn't work
I wouldn’t spend my hard earned money on something that insults my intelligence this much.
"Untraceable" certainly isn't unwatchable, but it is a bit unbelievable, rather predictable and more than a little bit gruesome (-able?)
Untraceable? Unappetizing is more like it — or perhaps unrealistic, unconvincing and/or unexciting.
The movie equivalent of a clueless old person ranting about the Internet.
Courageous Diane Lane plays a real woman without soft lighting, makeup, a hairdresser, or fancy clothes.
Untraceable is a movie whose potential was tossed aside for the conventional trappings of the serial-killer genre.
Just a bland crime movie that puts too much faith in an overbaked concept.
Imagine Hostel with a CSI twist and done for the Oxygen network crowd, and you'll have an idea of what Untraceable is like.
Boring, hypocritical, and didactic, Untraceable is an exercise in tut-tutting the audience for being curious about the very stuff the film traffics in.
Untraceable could have been a much more interesting film if it had simply stayed closer to its wonkish, Internet-flavored thriller roots.
If I can forgive Lane for dating uber-douchebag Jon Bon Jovi, marrying Christopher Highlander 2 Lambert, and making Must Love Dogs, I can forgive her this.
While Untraceable is an amiable enough way to kill two hours, it never gels into the kind of movie that would make me run out and start endorsing it to others.
Is it really ethical for a film to warn of the irresistible appeal of online snuff films while it simultaneously indulges, practically pornographically, in graphic displays of the same sort of kinky perversion?
What amounts to being a solid thriller collapses into an absurd potboiler as though the scriptwriters ran out of ideas.
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