Untraceable (2008)
Directed by Gregory Hoblit
Special Agent Jennifer Marsh works in an elite division of the FBI dedicated to fighting cybercrime. She thinks she has seen it all, until a particularly sadistic criminal arises on the Internet. This tech-savvy killer posts live feeds of his crimes on his website; the more hits the site gets, the faster the victim dies. Marsh and her team must find the elusive killer before time runs out.
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11 films that influenced Untraceable
What critics say influenced Untraceable
Saw , FeardotCom, and of course, Se7en are all part of the derivative film's lineage, which involves an agent (Diane Lane's Jennifer Marsh) with the FBI's Cyber Crimes division tasked with tracking down a fiend who straps people up to elaborate death machines and streams video of them dying on www.killwithme.com…
Combining the subspecies subplot of the psychopath who fattens on publicity, embracing many Jack the Ripper clones, with at least equal time for that of the Dirty Harry cop or Se7en uneasy buddy cops in their plodding methods, the Gregory Hoblit movie wears its long lineage on its sleeve.
That's the one place where the movie doesn't try to copy what's gone before, as it could have livened things up if it were more interesting visually, as David Fincher did with "Se7en."
Untraceable strives to gussy up its narrative cheat sheet (stolen from the still-warm bodies of Saw, Se7en, and Feardotcom, among others) with an outraged tone, but the blatant, transparent hypocrisy inherent in the story is what's really annoying.
Directed by Gregory Hoblit from a screenplay by a trio (a trio!) of whomevers, Untraceable hasn't the brains of a class-act psychothriller like The Silence of the Lambs (though it does reprise that film's titillating homophobia); worse yet, it lacks the balls to juice up the trashy verve of the Saw series.
With a flick that wants to remind you -- desperately wants to remind you -- of The Silence of the Lambs and its whipsmart, way-cool, fearless-under-pressure lady FBI agent yet gives its incarnation here little to do beyond tap on computer keyboards and fret in a maternal way about her daughter and the younger FBI agents under her.
Indeed, Untraceable mostly resembles The Silence of the Lambs , but without that film's rich, psychological and emotional buildup.
After all, it worked for Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs.
Most significantly, director Gregory Hoblit ( Fracture , Harts War ) tries to follow in the footsteps of worthy predecessors The Silence of the Lambs and Seven by letting a surprising amount of the hard-to-watch stuff unfold before the camera.
The final showdown is the kind of preposterous Hollywood cliche that would be right at home in Robert Altman's classic satire "The Player."
In 1995, when Sandra Bullock appeared in "The Net," the World Wide Web was new enough that audiences could be creeped out by the film's techno-paranoia.
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Combining the subspecies subplot of the psychopath who fattens on publicity, embracing many Jack the Ripper clones, with at least equal time for that of the Dirty Harry cop or Se7en uneasy buddy cops in their plodding methods, the Gregory Hoblit movie wears its long lineage on its sleeve.
This is what passes for action in "Untraceable," a wannabe cyberpunk think piece that has more in common with grotesque torture-fests such as "Hostel" and "Saw" than the brainy "Total Recall" and "The Matrix."
The director is Gregory Hoblit, who helped dream up the distinctive visual styles of the TV shows Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law and NYPD Blue, and directed the not-bad crazy-killer thriller Primal Fear (which introduced Edward Norton to film audiences).
She helps director Gregory Hoblit (“Primal Fear,” “Fracture”) sell the suspense of the script, which means that she spends the movie frequently wet, with a furrowed brow glued on her face.
One expects better from director Gregory Hoblit, the “Hill Street Blues” and “NYPD Blue” vet who made an impressive feature debut with the twisty “Primal Fear.”
Director Gregory Hoblit ("Primal Fear," "Fracture") is no stranger to the thriller form and moves things along at a satisfying pace that milks the squirm factor while gilding over the weaker narrative elements that might give an audience pause to overthink.
While the movie is refreshingly misogyny-free and it does feature a strong female lead to boot, it's ultimately a shame that Gregory Hoblit — a director who once mastered stylish suspense (see: 1996's Primal Fear, or 1998's Fallen) — is now just wading through the genre's other more fallow machinations (don't see: 2007's Fracture, or Untraceable) and streaming horror by rote.
Director Gregory Hoblit ("Primal Fear") ramps up the tension with the second webcam killing that involves the use of sunlamps.
It's directed by Gregory Hoblit, who has done better work in last year's "Fracture" and 2000's "Frequency."
Director Gregory Hoblit has given us pseudo-high-minded junk like last year’s Fracture and the cheesy dick flick Frequency, but also the satisfying B-movie pulp of Hart's War .
Well, in its present configuration, Diane Lane is your main marquee draw and Gregory Hoblit, the man behind Fracture, Harts War, and Frequency is your Master of Suspense.
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The Bigger Picture: Perhaps because Lane was "unfaithful" a few years back in Unfaithful, she's now being terrorized by a homicidal maniac.
They see Diane Lane's name on a movie called Untraceable and think it might be a thriller for adults, an Unfaithful with a little murder on the side.
Lanes legitimacy skyrocketed after her Oscar nod for 2003s Unfaithful, though her nearly three decades in the business more than buffers any reputation.
Other than "Wargames," "Sneakers" and "The Matrix," how many times has this actually worked?
This is what passes for action in "Untraceable," a wannabe cyberpunk think piece that has more in common with grotesque torture-fests such as "Hostel" and "Saw" than the brainy "Total Recall" and "The Matrix."