Search - Untraceable on DVD

Sharon F. (Shar) from AVON PARK, FL
Reviewed on 3/10/2022...

This murder/mystery movie is an edge-of-the-seat one that keeps you guessing and invites you into their world. Great movie.

0 of 2 member(s) found this review helpful.

Tony B. (Hollywood) from MINNEAPOLIS, MN
Reviewed on 7/29/2012...

If you liked the grisly aspects of Silence Of The Lambs, Face Off, and similar movies, and enjoy Internet drama, you will probably like this movie.

Diane Lane is excellent as usual, and all other aspects of the movie – acting, directing, set design, camera, etc. are top notch. It was just too gruesome for me. OK to see once, but not one of those movies I would watch over and over.

Enemy of The State, Sneakers, and similar movies, I do watch over and over. The main difference is the gore.

I’m a happy ending person, and I like movies that give good examples and inspiration for people to follow for living and in their own lives. This movie begs the question: “By making movies like these, are we giving people bad ideas, or promoting some creeps creepy dramatization”? Yes this stuff probable does happen in isolated instances, or maybe not so isolated, but why promote it?

What you put your attention on you get – so who wants this?

To a certain degree movies and TV shape our society and the way people think and feel. Agree or disagree I think if this kind of stuff, and other undesirable stuff wasn’t promoted on TV and in the Movies, there would be less of it happening in life. I may be wrong on this but I don’t think so, and If my observation is accurate, then those who make movies carry the responsibility whether they want it or not.

6 of 8 member(s) found this review helpful.

Paula S. from PERRY, OK
Reviewed on 6/25/2011...

It was very intense and kept you wanting more

3 of 7 member(s) found this review helpful.

Deidra C. (Deidra670) from GARRETT, KY
Reviewed on 3/21/2011...

UNTRACEABLE is a dark, gritty look into the world of the seedy underbelly of the Internet. Diane Lane is a Portland based member of the FBI division of their cybercrimes unit. And she's quite good at her job. Internet hackers beware.

Then she becomes aware of a site called killwithme.com. The hook is the owner of the site is going to kill someone on camera and the more hits he gets, the faster his victim dies. The premise is a terrifying one in this age of digital cameras, camcorders, iPhones, YouTube and Facebook. The possibility for this type of killer to emerge is real.

UNTRACEABLE has a few issues, but for the most part, it's smart, scary and the tension is so intense. Normally, I despise the torture/porn themes of movies like SAW and HOSTEL, but UNTRACEABLE reeled me in. It reeled me in before I knew it.

If you want a solid thriller with a strong female lead who needs no man to save her, UNTRACEABLE is your movie.

4 of 7 member(s) found this review helpful.

Cliched thriller fails to bring thrills or intelligence desp

Scott Schiefelbein | Portland, Oregon United States | 05/01/2010

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I live in Portland, Oregon, and one thing we Portlanders share is a desperate need for our city to be loved. Our hearts soar every time the New York Times does a spread on how "livable" our fair city is, we bask in the glory that is the national reputation of our local microbrews, and we delight in any movie or TV show that has the wisdom to be filmed here.

And this is the one thing "Unbreakable" gets right - if you are looking for a setting for a grim, ominous thriller, for several months of the year Portland is the perfect location. While we do in fact have the most beautiful summer in the country, for several months on end our city is gray, damp, dark and brooding. This movie, a pure rip-off of "Seven" for the Internet age, rightly chooses to set its tale in the City of Roses during those months where the colors seem to fade and the sun never rises above the power of a 40-watt bulb. The city looks like the right place for a serial killer.

That's the one thing that the movie gets right - the other is a pretty cool premise: a serial killer is at work in Portland, setting up diabolical tortures and putting them on his website in real time. The more viewers the site attracts, the faster the victim is killed. This promising premise is a strong indictment of our current cultural fascination with Train Wreck TV, Internet porn, and (perhaps redundantly) the mindless idiocy of the Kardashians.

Diane Lane, a strong, intelligent actress who can look both gritty and gorgeous, is a Portland-based FBI agent who works in cybercrimes. She's drawn to the killer's website thanks to a gruesome first act - the disturbing murder of a kitten. Her sidekick, played by Colin Hanks, is a brilliant computer geek who is so charming that you instantly recognize him as the Cool Sidekick Destined to Die archetype. Other players fill out their cliched roles, including the Clueless Superior and the Gruff Good Cop.

But the murderer is most disappointing. A thriller of this type depends on its villain more than its hero. While "Seven" has a strong story and excellent performances from Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, the movie resonates thanks to the sinister performance of Kevin Spacey as the psychotic killer. This movie gives us a killer who is so consistently one clever step ahead of the cops that he must have read the screenplay - he hides in plain sight, his tricks for remaining anonymous are too clever by half, and his tortures are so exotic that the logistics defy belief (his giant fish tank for an acid bath is particularly ridiculous).

The screenplay also has two mindless developments - one involving Morse Code that is telegraphed with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, and another where Diane Lane's character abandons all the intelligence and policecraft she has demonstrated in the first hour.

A good thriller is an extremely difficult movie to make - demanding rigorous attention to detail as you put a clever but plausible story on the screen. "Untraceable" is lazy and cliched as it does a disservice to its cast, premise, and audience.

But Portland looks good."

Suspense With A Good Dose of "Ick"

D. Mikels | Skunk Holler | 04/29/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Ethical Question #879: If you could go on a website to watch a person being tortured to death--knowing that each "hit" to the site hastens the demise of said person--would you visit that website? Of course our first, visceral reaction to the question would be a resounding "No!"; but. . .really? Given the relentless dimensions of human curiosity? After all, when there's a train wreck, don't we all go to gawk at the wreckage?

This question is answered rather pessimistically in the suspense/thriller UNTRACEABLE. In a word, people would flock to such a website in droves, consequences to the victim be danged. When such a site suddenly appears in the rain-soaked Portland metro, it draws the instant attention of the FBI Cyber Crimes Unit, led by Agent Jennifer Marsh (a surprisingly stoic Diane Lane). As the manhunt ensues, as each subsequent victim is killed in more gruesome and awful ways (in streaming live video, of course), the killer plucks off a member of Marsh's own team, then terrorizes her family. The ending is predictable yet still heart-pounding, and this film--from start to finish--pulls off suspense in spades.

Again, Lane is stoic and a bit too composed (yet does let down her hair a little as the story moves along); and some of the components to the plot were so farfetched I had to snicker (an agent immersed in a vat of battery acid using his eyes to transmit Morse code, for cryin' out loud). The supporting cast is good, including Colin Hanks (who has proven the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree), while Joseph Cross is just plain creepy as the crafty, techno-savvy bad guy. All the computer mumbo jumbo flew right over my head, but didn't take away from UNTRACEABLE being one whale of a seat-squirmer.
--D. Mikels, Author, The Reckoning"