"Untraceable" (2008) - Movie Review

Gregory Hobilt points us the net surfers onto the face and the curiousness of seeing a video, even if it contains an unspeakable act towards any one. People might flinch after seeing but the edgy feeling to look into it is what “Untraceable” uses and there are characters in this time period who would like to watch it as a pleasure or a mere human instinct. Either sociopaths are developing fast or we are getting to know the ugly side of it through the best and worst of this technology.

A killer live streaming the killings of his victims over a website and based on the hits, the progress of the death is accelerated. So now you know the curious itch. Two agents in cyber crimes division Jennifer Marsh (Diane Lane) and Griffin (Colin Hanks) fail to trace the killer. There is sloppy work in the screenplay especially to demonstrate the capability of these two computer whiz, which is a wild guess and to send cops to break in to a house over to a hunch is a haphazard work. But the film works afterwards, well again for most parts with further sloppy work. Then why am I going to tell it as a decent film? The premise and how the director never tries to come up with a big sub plot makes “Untraceable” what it stands for.

In fact, the serial killer out here cannot be technically called killer as he sets up the stage but the hits are the ones which kills the victim. As merciless this killer is, the people become the primary hammers to nail down the coffin. It can be regarded as the pop corn thriller and sure it is but the reality in which the possibility of such a website and there do exist in my belief are those sites containing gruesome images. People forward this and many unaware open it up, some delete while some forward it again. I never was able to understand why a gory picture needs to be circulated when they exactly know the receiving person will very well be disturbed, offended and may be even sick. I remember getting a horrible image from some one I knew whom I forgot. I was petrified by the number of people been forwarded in CC list.

So as you see, the film uses this feeling of us soaked in the web of malicious environment floating around. The movie works on this paranoia and some one would have even accidentally gone to a site they never wanted; this would perfectly give the jitters. The film gets the attention when they reveal the face of killer which draws us forward. The purpose of the film gets solved by the further plot revelations.

“Untraceable” by no way stands out in the league of the high chilling thriller film we have seen over the years. But as his previous “Fracture”, Hoblit’s fast paced move over from one scene to another with no soggy moments to take a breath makes the going and even overlook the blunders and silliness some of the characters does. And an ending at where it should be and a message to pop us out of this unknown digital data crawling in the midst of instinct reactions to cause the unthinkable. It may sound too paranoid, but that’s exactly the film poses upon on the viewers and escape with some of the mishaps.