Untraceable
June 2nd, 2008 at 4:01 pm (Movies)
As suspense/thriller movies go, it’s very formulaic. You see every plot device for what it is, ie Griffin’s phone call to Marsh saying that he thought he knew who it might be but he wanted to look at it a bit more first so see ya at work. I immediately looked and Ryan said “Well that’s it for Griffin, he’s dead”. Because A) anytime a supporting character says that they have an idea but need a little more time to verify it, they are killed or otherwise taken out of the picture before they can divulge it. Also B) combine that with “I’ll see you at work” means that won’t happen either in a Murphy’s Law kind of way.
And that’s really the worst thing I can say about this movie. Despite a lot of predictability, it’s very watchable and enjoyable. The premise is an internet killer that sets up situations where the more people that log into the site, the closer to death the victim becomes.
Ryan found that very scary but couldn’t seem to make the connection that I was pointing out that it’s commentary on the state of our society these days where we encourage paparazzis to stalk the celebrities and anyone of minor importance and the distribution of real life gory photos such as the ones of that girl whose head was smashed like a melon in an car crash. A cop sent photos to dispatch who then sent them to someone else in a “hey look at this gruesome thing” and it quickly became another internet thing and then someone sent the photos to the girl’s cousin’s cell phone.
Knowing how close we are to that gives this movie even more power to grip you.
Diane Lane is decent though I thought her character was a little off. Colin Hanks was excellent. Joseph Cross (who we thought was one of the Ashmore twins) was superb. I have to admit I found myself thinking that Joseph looks more like a young Tom Hanks then Colin does.
The premise for the movie is original but the storytelling isn’t. Watch it if you liked Kiss The Girls, Double Jeopardy, movies of that ilk, want to see Colin Hanks prove it’s not just cause of his Dad that he’s getting casted, like Diane Lane, love creepy torture death scenes a la Se7en.