Untraceable

Diane Lane’s career trajectory has hardly been one of linear progression or logical experimentation, especially in recent years. After the sensual critical success that was Unfaithful, her follow ups have included saccharine romantic comedies like Must Love Dogs and an antithetical turn in the George Reeves biopic Hollywoodland. With Untraceable, Lane dabbles in torture porn and techie thrills, playing FBI agent Jennifer Marsh, an adept cyber investigator who cracks down on identity theft perpetrators at night and plays devoted single mother by day. She performs her job with swift efficacy, tracking down petty transgressors and crime-savvy computer nerds faster than you can say "LAN party." Her predictable daily routine receives a violent interruption in the form of www.killwithme.com, a website launched by a sadistic serial killer who streams live feed of his victims on the web. In a voyeuristic twist, the murderer lays blame on users for contributing to the deaths; the more people log on, the faster he expedites each victim’s demise, whether soaking them in a vat of battery acid or turning an army of heat lamps onto their body.

Untraceable is clumsy and clichéd, make no mistake, but it’s also mildly watchable, albeit in an unintentionally comical way. Its tedium lies in a screenplay riddled with clunky dialogue and a contrived attempt at social commentary. "We are the murder weapon," one character plainly states in an attempt to dissuade curious masses from typing those three fateful words into their browser bar. In a climate where internet gossip hounds and reality television shows are experiencing their heyday, this bold remark—and very pointed criticism—seems apt, but it is executed with such heavy-handed obviousness that one can hardly take it seriously.

Lane is a capable actor, but here none of her strengths are put to use, as she spends most of the film caught mid-pant or contorting her face to emote hyperbolic bewilderment. Her costars do the same, though glib Colin Hanks has perfected the art of deadpanning sarcastic barbs and exploiting his role as a lovelorn geek, for little purpose other than to provide puny humor. Throughout it all, convoluted computer lingo is casually thrown around, especially during frenetic moments when the team scrambles to pinpoint the killer’s location. This is seemingly done to give the script some credibility, but most of the language is nonsensical to the average viewer, and with little context, it’s mostly empty.

Nonetheless, no one can accuse Untraceable of being altogether dull. Its plot, however weak and underdeveloped, still conforms to rules specific of formulaic thrillers. There are few surprises, but it steadily trudges along and is peppered with a handful of tense moments which, though ultimately anti-climactic because of their predictability, appeal to one’s most base desire for paltry action sequences. On this level it fulfills its lowest common denominator expectations, but the core story and its tangential subplots, including a failed attempt to create a semi-romantic dynamic between Lane and Billy Burke, who plays Marsh’s assistant sleuth of sorts, fall utterly flat. As a fellow viewer facetiously put it during this reviewer’s screening, "Why didn’t the killer hack into her gun?" Because, really now, that would’ve made things so much more interesting.

—Heidi Atwal
05.09.08