Untraceable

Being a fan of Diane Lane, I was looking forward to watching “Untraceable.” Appearing as an edge-of-the seat-thriller, I was hoping for a suspenseful ride that would keep me guessing until the end. Instead, “Untraceable” reveals its secret all too early and just leaves the audience bored with underdeveloped characters and disturbed with its “Saw”-like gore.

Widowed FBI Agent Jennifer Marsh (Diane Lane) hunts down criminals in cyberspace. She spends most of her night shifts tracking down hackers and identity thieves with her good friend and fellow agent Griffin Dowd (Colin Hanks). After a long night, she goes home, helps her daughter get ready for school, and goes to bed.

Her seemingly endless routine is interrupted when she receives a Web site to investigate: www.killwithme.com. When she logs on to it, she sees a kitten cruelly stuck on glue paper. She then realizes the Web site is all live-stream. The more people who visit the Web site, the faster its victims die. The serial killer soon turns to human victims, and Agent Jennifer Marsh works against the clock in tracking down a killer who is virtually untraceable, since he uses advanced technology to hide in vast cyberspace.

The cast was well-chosen. Diane Lane is believable as an agent and delivers her cyber-jargon dialogue with believability. Colin Hanks brings on a strong, refreshing performance and precisely delivers his witty lines. In the movie, we see Agent Marsh is living with her mother and has a daughter of her own. Although they are all living in the same house, their relationships are never explored. Stella Marsh (Mary Beth Hurt) appears simply as a babysitter, and Annie (Perla Haney-Jardine) seems to have been only inserted to make Agent Marsh more vulnerable to the serial killer. This movie could have shown a strong mother-daughter bond. Since time was never taken in making their relationships believable, when Annie is in danger, I just sighed that another subplot was added in lengthening the movie.

My favorite character in the movie is Detective Eric Box (Billy Burke). He begins as an obnoxious, hard cop who called the suspect and even one of the victims a POS. Throughout the film, his character softens. He becomes thoughtful toward Agent Marsh and sympathetic when the killer kills one of her loved ones. I enjoyed how they developed a friendly relationship without the obligatory sex scene. At one point in the movie, he goes over to Agent Marsh’s motel room and brings her dinner. He spends the night, but they never sleep together. It felt nice that a male character could be thoughtful without wanting something in return.

I believe the biggest damage to this film was revealing of the killer all too early. The film was slow from the beginning, the only suspense left was the identity of the killer. As soon as the camera focuses on him and zooms in on his bright, blue eyes, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to guess he’s the murderer. I rolled my eyes on several occasions. This was one of the most unoriginal and unbelievable killers I have seen in a long time. He’s basically just a kid who had all kinds of the latest technology, yet drove an ancient van. He had a near omniscient knowledge of the other actors and even outwitted the police and FBI.

For an R-rated movie, “Untraceable” had only moderate profanity. I counted 5 f-words, 6, sh*t,, 2 a-holes, and one GD. Besides this one misuse, I never heard any other misuses of the Lord’s name in vain.

“Untraceable”’s main offensiveness came from its gore. I felt like I was watching a repeat of “Saw.” The amount of blood and torture in this film is enormous. This movie is definitely not suited for children of any age. Since the amount of Web site viewers had a direct effect on the speed of the murder, all deaths were slow, brutal, and agonizing. One victim was slowly soaked in sulfuric acid; it showed his flesh slowly peeling off and dissolving. One victim had the Web site address cut into his skin and slowly bled to death as the result of anticoagulants. It was a bloody mess. Another victim was burned alive with heating lamps. On multiple occasions, it showed his flesh bubbling and being charred. If you didn’t like the “Saw” movies, please do not see this movie.

After a murder had taken place, the director would zoom in on the Web viewers’ comments. The comments were evil and sadistic, urging the murderer to find more victims. “Untraceable” shows the real danger of the Internet and how it has become Satan’s playground.

With the invention of the Internet, double lives have formed. People have found that they can have anonymity and hide their sins. Without their loved ones knowing, humans often believe they can fool those around them. However, God knows about every single sin in a person’s heart and nothing remains hidden from him. In Hebrews 4:13 it says:

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account (NIV).

Agent Marsh warned her supervisor not to have a press conference about the Web site; she knew people would become curious and log on to the site. He felt obligated, and warned any American who went on the site that they would be an accomplice to murder. Not surprisingly, the Web site got flooded with viewers and the subsequent victims died more quickly.

The viewers probably truly believed they were not the murderers, since their own hands were not bloody. Jesus, however, said that if you think of murder in your heart, you have already committed it.

The anonymity of the Internet has allowed sin to become an even bigger snare trap than previous times. It is now even more important that we obey God and “avoid every kind of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:22).

Right before Cain murdered Abel, God wisely warned him about mastering sin. In Genesis 4:7, God tells Cain,

“…But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”

By avoiding all kinds of evil and having the Holy Spirit live inside us, sin cannot take over our lives.

This movie could have been so much more. The concept was a thought-provoking one. The cast was perfect. The missing ingredients was a better script and better directing. Sadly, they just left us with a gory path that led to a boring and predictable ending. I do not recommend this film. It isn’t worth the torture and bore.

Violence: Extreme / Profanity: Heavy to Extreme / Sex/Nudity: Moderate

• Positive
• Neutral
• Negative
• Young people