By Faith McQuinn

UNTRACEABLE isn’t some masterpiece of thrilling cinema—it’s a been-there, seen-that type of thriller. But it does a decent job of exposing the very realistic, very scary possibilities of the Internet. Most of us can’t function without the Internet—it’s in our homes, our businesses and our cars. Naturally, a movie about an Internet killer would scare the crap out of a good bit of people, even though the story that surrounds it is rather predictable.

UNTRACEABLE is by no means SEVEN or SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. It is not a thinking man’s movie. It’s more like an advanced version of SAW with higher caliber actors.

Diane Lane is Jennifer Marsh, a special agent for the FBI Cyber Crimes Division. She and colleague Griffin Dowd (Colin Hanks) monitor the Internet for sex offenders and identity thieves. When they get an anonymous tip about the site killwithme.com, they discover a demented live feed of a kitten being tortured.

Attempts to shut down the site are unsuccessful, and the higher-ups decide one dead cat isn’t worth the trouble. Much to their dismay (but, of course, not to the audience’s), the site administrator steps up his game to human torture. The more people to visit the site, the faster the victim dies. And people are very interested.

With the assistance of Detective Box (Billy Burke), Jennifer, Griffin and their FBI cyber team must figure out a way to stop the killer and shut down his horrible website.


The story may seem fresh, but it’s not. I’ve seen this thriller many times before, and I’ve seen it done far better. Just this time around, the killer has thousands of accomplices, and viewers are made to think about the dark side of the Internet.

Early on, the killer’s identity is revealed. Some might not like this tactic, but I think it helped escalate the movie a little bit. Instead of playing this game of which one of the good guys might be the bad guy, it becomes a game of figuring out why the bad guy is bad. The answer, I will admit, is pretty well thought out.

The best thing about this movie is how spot on it is about the nature of online communities. I’m an Internet junkie. I do my banking, my shopping, my bill paying, and some of my TV watching online. I am not, though, a fan of online forums. The general public is not filled with the smartest people, and IQ levels significantly drop when people enter chat rooms. UNTRACEABLE exploits this idea without blowing it out of proportion. You may say that you would never visit a site that may or may not cause someone harm, but curiosity will eventually get the better of you. It’s like passing a car accident on the street. You don’t want to look, but you do anyway.

The worst thing about this movie is the cheap copout on story points. UNTRACEABLE is full of plot glitches that are simply there to keep the story moving. Jennifer Marsh is an FBI agent, yes, but she’s a desk jockey. She works in cyber crimes in front of a computer. The last time she probably saw the field was in her training at Quantico. So will someone please explain to me why she would be allowed to go into the field, let alone be part of the task force that goes to the killer’s house? Oh! It’s because the audience desperately needed her reaction to seeing a victim up close and personal.

Another instance is when the killer targets Jennifer and her family. The FBI takes her mother and daughter into protective custody. As we all suspect, Jennifer refuses the protection because she’s got to catch the bastard that terrorized her family. She moves into a dark, secluded hotel and has absolutely no police or FBI protection outside. Um…no. But if she had the protection, the killer wouldn’t have been able to get to her. Right? Right.


And then there’s the ending! I won’t reveal it because some people might not figure it out beforehand. Let’s just say that the movie loses major points for even thinking about hacking into a car computer.

For all its predictability and inconsistency, UNTRACEABLE at least stays consistent with its theme. The Internet is a helpful tool in today’s world, but it’s also a dark and twisted place where people have no morals.