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All Movie Info
Starring:
Diane Lane, Colin Hanks, Billy Burke, Joseph Cross, Mary Beth Hurt, Tyrone Giordano, Perla Haney-Jardine, Dan Callahan, Joseph Cross, Betty Moyer, Todd Robinson, Gunter Simon, Steve Kaminsky, Gray Eubank, Billy Burke, Katie O'Grady, Daniel Liu, Peter Lewis, Jodi Altendorf, Tim De Zarn, Jeff Mills, Erin Carufel, Gregory P. Smith, Ryan Deal, John Breen, Jamal N. Qutub, Ryan Hopkins, Brian Benjamin, Jeff Mills, Alan Winston
Directed By:
Gregory Hoblit
Written By:
Allison Burnett, Mark Brinker, Robert Fyvolent
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Untraceable (2008)
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Movie Review by Jarrod 
January 30th, 2008
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'Untraceable' starts off as an intelligent, creepy thriller and then descends into clichéd stupidity, almost as if different writers came in for the second half. The real victim of this is Diane Lane, who is initially so effective as Jennifer Marsh, the FBI agent who deals with cybercrime. Jennifer is tough and smart, but is required later on to make dumb decisions that place her in harm's way, only she can escape perilous situations for the sake of excitement, but the material is strong enough on its own that stuff like this is largely irrelevant. Marsh and her partner, Griffin Dowd (Colin Hanks) are working on catching a serial killer, named Owen Reilly (Joseph Cross), who murders people on a live feed, which can be viewed by visiting a website he has created called.killwithme.com. When a certain number of hits are reached, the person dies. And of course, the site is popular. What does that say for humanity? I would not doubt that such a site, if it really existed, would generate a lot of interest. I am hoping it doesn't exist. There are plenty of sites with disturbing and sickening images, but nothing that is quite like what Reilly puts out there. In essence, legally, millions of regular Americans would be accomplices, or be deemed complicit in a horrible crime. The problem is that Reilly is able to be what the title says he is, "untraceable", meaning that the precise location of his activities cannot be determined, and he always seems to stay one step ahead of Marsh, Dowd, and local detective Eric Box (Billy Burke) as they desperately try to find him. His ingenuity is limitless, to the point of being almost impossible, along with the resources he apparently can command to remain more or less invisible to one of the world's most advanced police organizations. But lapses in logic are not that big of a deal in this case, since, like Seven, the movie maintains a rather tense and gloomy atmosphere, Portland is captured in its grayish, rainy splendor by cinematographer Anastas Michos.
The violence is unflinching, occasionally quite gruesome, and pet lovers may want to look away when they see one particular sequence involving the torturous death of a cat. The killer's identity is revealed too early, I think. It would be better to leave him shrouded in mystery until near the end, when his name and face and everything else could be exposed, as was the case in Seven, which is an infinitely better movie by comparison, but 'Untraceable' does have its moments. I sort of liked the scenes with Marsh and her daughter Annie (Perla Haney-Jardine). Their relationship has been affected by Marsh's job, which has her being away from home a lot. Hanks is likable. Burke is bland, and Box is around mainly to be built up as a potential love interest. But Lane is excellent, and looks great, even in such a dismal setting.
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