I had hoped that Untraceable would prove to be an intense thriller. By the time the film was halfway over, I had all but given up on that hope. It became quickly apparent that the movie was attempting to show something beyond what it was actually showing. Make sense? What I am trying to say is that Untraceable is more about what it reflects of our own society than what it is actually showing on the screen. It is more concept than execution.
I do not feel it was completely successful at either. Fortunately, when you take what is shown in conjunction with what is being said, the result is a rather entertaining big screen viewing. Of course, having someone like Diane Lane in the lead does not hurt matters.
In a similar way to last year's bomb I Know Who Killed Me, Untraceable brings together the traditional thriller and the current trend of torture-based horror films (a la Saw and Hostel). Fortunately it is not so convoluted and just plain bad as the former. It will also bring up memories of Silence of the Lambs and Seven. I was even reminded of a low budget film called Series Seven. With all of these thoughts conjured up by the film, it kind of makes the idea of an original film moot. Sure, some of the contraptions employed by the killer are new to the screen, but original kills do not an original movie make.
Diane Lane stars as Jennifer Marsh, a single mother and a member of the FBI's cyber-crime unit. Each night she goes to work and does her best to put away those who steal identities, prey on children, and worse. Then comes the big call; she is tipped off to a website called KillWithMe.com. Upon visiting the site, she discovers that people are being killed in elaborate traps with the aid of the site's visitors. The more people that surf to the site, the quicker the victim dies. With each successive victim, they die faster and faster. It is up to Marsh, her parter Griffin Dowd (Colin Hanks), and the rest of her team to track down the site and the man behind it to put a stop to the murders.
It is a task that proves to be more difficult than expected as the site is being bounced through any number of servers. When one gets shut down, another pops up to take its place. It is learned that whoever behind it is local to the team (fortunate for those doing the tracking). What follows is an escalating cat and mouse game between the killer and the FBI team. That is, until it becomes a personal struggle between the killer and Marsh when she becomes a target of his twisted game.
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