Untraceable is a 2008 thriller film starring Diane Lane, Joseph Cross, Billy Burke and Colin Hanks. It was directed by Gregory Hoblit and distributed by Screen Gems. The film is a social commentary on Internet schadenfreude.[2]
Set in Portland, Oregon, the film involves a serial killer who rigs contraptions that kill his victims based on the number of hits received by a website ("www.killwithme.com") that features a live streaming video of the victim. Millions of people log on, hastening the victims' violent deaths. Lane plays the protagonist, a cybercop named Jennifer Marsh, who pieces the mystery together at great risk to herself and her family.
Plot
Jennifer Marsh (Diane Lane) is a widowed single parent living in a suburban Portland home with her daughter Annie Haskins (Perla Haney-Jardine). By night, she works in the FBI's cybercrime division with Griffin Dowd (Colin Hanks), fighting identity theft and similar crimes. One night, an anonymous tip leads them to a website called killwithme.com. The site features a streaming video of a kitten being tortured and killed.
After the kitten's death, killwithme.com's webmaster (Joseph Cross) 'graduates' to human victims and makes their deaths correlate directly with the number of hits the site receives. At a press conference, the public is urged to avoid killwithme.com, but as Marsh feared, this only increases the site's popularity. The videos are recorded in the killer's basement and his various victims include a helicopter pilot (bled to death by injections of anticoagulant), a newscaster (burnt to death by heat lamps while cemented, up to his mid-thigh, into the floor of the basement); and Griffin Dowd (killed by slowly increasing the concentration of sulfuric acid solution in which he is submerged up to his neck).
At first it seems the victims were randomly chosen, but this is not the case. The first two victims were chosen because they were part of filming or presenting the suicide of a junior college teacher. The teacher's unstable, techno-prodigy son, Owen Reilly, broke down and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. When released, he decided to prove a point (that the public is insatiable for the suffering of others), as well as wreak vengeance on those he felt had exploited his father's tragedy. Dowd was killed because he came close to the truth of who the murderer was. Marsh, who figures this out, is soon targeted as well.
Captured by Reilly, Marsh escapes her death by rotary tiller by swinging out of the way while dangling from the ceiling. She ends up breaking free and pinning down the murderer, and just as the other police show up, Marsh shoots and kills Reilly, on his own website. As the film ends, Marsh displays her badge symbolically and the scene closes with a shot of the dwindling chatter in the website's chat room, featuring the telling statement "a genius died today", as well as showing a couple of "chatters" that are glad the killer is dead and a final comment, asking whether the video could be downloaded (similar to how Reilly's fathers suicide footage was spread across the internet.)
Cast
- Diane Lane as Agent Jennifer Marsh
- Colin Hanks as Agent Griffin Dowd
- Billy Burke as Detective Eric Box
- Joseph Cross as Owen Reilly
- Mary Beth Hurt as Stella Marsh
- Tyrone Giordano as Tim Wilkes
- Perla Haney-Jardine as Annie Haskins
- Christopher Cousins as David Williams
- Tim De Zarn as Herbert Miller
- Peter Lewis as Richard Brooks
- Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Arthur James Elmer
- Brynn Baron as Mrs. Miller
- John Breen as Richard Weymouth
- Dan Callahan as Trey Restom
- Erin Carufel as Melanie
- Gray Eubank as Ray
- Zack Hoffman as Chief of Police Michael Bagley
- Len Huynh as Tom Park
- Dax Jordan as Scotty Hillman
- Daniel Liu as Detective Tom Moy
- Kirk Mouser as FBI Agent Carter Thompson
Reception
Untraceable opened on January 25, 2008 to generally negative reviews, receiving a 15% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 106 reviews.[3] Several critics viewed the film as hypocritical for indulging in the "torture porn" it condemns.[4][5][6][7] It also met criticism for its climax which was seen as devolving into horror film clichés.[4][8] Lane, however, was praised for her performance in the film.[9][10] Roger Ebert gave the film a favorable review, giving the film a 3 star rating. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave this film a strongly negative review giving it zero stars. The film opened poorly, with an opening weekend of $11.3 million, below the $35 million budget. It has so far made $51.8 million worldwide, on theatrical release.[1]
Similarities
There are striking similarities to Untraceable with the story of episode 13, season 2 of Millennium "The Mikado". The main characters Frank Black and Peter Watts track a possibly long-dormant serial killer who is now broadcasting his murders over the Internet. The person depicted on the website is murdered when the number of people that sign in to watch equals the number predetermined by the serial killer and depicted on the website.
Production
The film was shot in and around Portland, Oregon. A temporary studio was constructed in Clackamas, Oregon where all non-location photography was done, mostly interiors, including the FBI's cyber division, Marsh's house, the FBI building elevator, several basements, etc. A scene set on the east end of the Broadway Bridge was shot both on the actual bridge as well as at the studio. A faux diner was built underneath the Broadway bridge, which was used in the movie. The construction of this set took fewer than twelve hours. The birthday party for Haney-Jardine's character was filmed in the roller skating rink of Oaks Amusement Park.
DVD release
On May 13, 2008, Untraceable was released on DVD. The DVD included an audio commentary and four featurettes.
References
External links
