Customer Reviews

Untraceable [UMD for PSP]

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(26)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I understand I have to suspend my disbelief with movies like this, but I wasn't interested enough in the characters to make it worth the effort. And it's not about the people tuning in; a troll through the videos on the internet make it obvious that people would watch it, though I have a hard time believing there were 12 million viewers and the load doesn't crash the site. It's more about the FBI's inability to take down a website. I find that... highly unlikely. Still, I could have overlooked it (goodness knows I'm no computer expert, perhaps it's possible, but there are plenty of governments out there blocking a lot more than a single website...) had the rest of the story been compelling or interesting enough to make me care. If I cared at all about the characters in the story. But I didn't. They were flat and boring and I honestly cared more about his first victim than I did all the others put together.

I suppose there was some high, moral message to the story, in the end, but it was so smothered in... fluff and tedium that it lost any real meaning. It felt like Saw or Hostel without the gore (okay, there was a little bit of icky, but nothing compared to the levels of those movies). Which leave you with a vague plot, some action sequences, and a lukewarm, predictable ending. It's fine for an evening when there's nothing on, or for watching with a group of friends (and throwing popcorn at the screen), but overall you won't be missing out much if you pass it by.

This movie has lots of actions, tense, as you would expect from a cyber-movie. The main plot is about a psychotic man who uses his taser to get the people to his "dungeon" and display the torture online. I thought the plot was brilliant. The way he does his torture where the lights increases as the viewers increases which practically baked the victim; the use of chemical (forgot what it was) on the next person; and the voice changer so the psycho can lure his victim - I thought those were all unique and high-concept.

Now adays, though, Feds can easily trace the IP address. In this movie, they have difficulty tracing the IP address of the user. I'm sure that is why the title is Untraceable. The computer forensic folks are a lot savier now. It would have added more mystery if the audience does not know who the person behind the keyboard. That would have given them something to solve.

I laughed at the ending, though. When the heroin broke loose of her captivity where she was tied upside down, one of the users posted a question: "How can I download this scene." (something like this). I thought that was hilarious as it shows us our obsession with live Interent action.

Again, this movie is entertaining enough in a different way. I would still recommend seeing it. Cold Eyes

Based on reviews I expected something like "Saw", but that wasn't the case. This wasn't a horror, it was a crime drama like "Bone Collector". An FBI investigative team tries to track down a murderer that has a website tied to the method of murder. The problem is he hides his tracks to well on the internet. His murders are conducted based on the number of hits the website recieves. In one case the more people visit the website, the water the person he kidnapped is soaking in turns to battery acid. So this is not for the squemish or young. This is also the one thing I have trouble with in the movies given perception. Being a computer geek for over twenty-four years I know if you want someone shut down for killing people, there is a way including going to their ISP if not the networks or IPs they're bouncing through. That aside it was a pretty decent movie. In fact scarier when you consider the popularity of public websites for people to post videos. One can't help wonder if people at least initially would think something like this was a hoax and tell all their friends to check it out. Hence one facet of this is feasible. The texted graphic comments we see would then be understandable as well as I have seen people make comments like those about online game characters. When they don't think it is real, but just fake with acting and props, then you can see why it is believable. The acting was good, the directing, story, and music were all well done. Overall I would recommend it if you like movies like "Along Came a Spider" and "Kiss the Girls". Good quality DVD with decent replayability.

This film is disgusting and has no redeeming value. Its not entertainment and there is nothing to learn here. The acting is mediocre at best and the story doesn't fully make sense and is morally bankrupt. Mostly I dislike this film because it uses for its own attraction value the very thing it proposes to demonize. All involved with this waste of resources should be deeply ashamed that they hadn't used their time, energy and money doing something better for the film viewing public. Skip it.

Without disclosing much details, let me just use two scenes to illustrate my point:

1. the opening, when the agent identifies a suspect who uses his neighbor's wireless router to access other people's bank accounts. Now, how does she identifies the suspect? By guessing. He's a programmer, he's a renter, and the most hilarious one, he's registered for 3 hand guns and 2 assault rifles. Let me pause, owning firearm is protected by the constitution, and people, who own, especially "register," their firearm are the ultimate good guys - you cannot buy a gun from grocery store. you must go through a serious background and criminal check first. In fact, more than half of American families own firearm.

Obviously, without any probable cause, the agent orders a raid. That must be sweet!

2. Some time down the trail, the agent claims that the bad guy got into her wireless network and got into her computer etc. OK, I thought the agent was a computer wiz who worked for FBI cyber lab. any half brained IT person would know how to secure their wireless connection, not to mention how to fortify their computers, but a FBI agent doesn't? any decent security would prevent even the most determined hackers - they don't try to break down your firewall and security, they do social engineering. Even they break down the firewall, it's virtually impossible to break in even a well firewalled Windows XP... oh, you are not running Linux, Ms FBI?

Should have at least hired me to be the technical adviser.

Oh, FBI cannot shut down someone's website??? You are joking, right? Even an 8 year old knows that. Just Google it if you don't know!!!

Eh. So-so thriller with a really bland perfomance by Diane Lane and probably nobody else you've ever heard of. (MaryBeth Hurt, maybe, but she really just sits around and sighs). The deaths are fairly gruesome if that's what your looking for but the plot is predictable and it lacks any real energy.

Novel in its approach, 'Untraceable' asks interesting moral questions about a plausible technological nightmare. A disgruntled man kidnaps select victims to torture and kill, adding more of a given hazard as the numbers of people log into his website. As his online broadcast is made known, FBI agents (headed by Jennifer Marsh [Diane Lane]) try to keep the situation under the radar and bloggers off the website. Savvy for obtaining a Russian domain for his website, the perpetrator renders the crew unable to pinpoint much less stop the website until they can locate him at his hideout. Sometimes a grizly update of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum," the film is often reminiscent of 'Silence of the Lambs' with eerie surveillance scenes. Somewhat cynical and far less tense, 'Untraceable' often remains more educational than entertaining. (2.5 *'s)

Another poster wrote, "This movie disguised as a crime thriller, is an excuse for watching torture. How sadistic."

Couldn't agree with you more.

I have just three questions for the writers of this movie: 1.-How can a FBI computer crimes agent only use the computer three maybe four times in a movie about the internet?; 2.-How does a FBI computer crimes agent not have a secure wireless network and also lets her seven just turned eight year old daughter download anything off the net; and finally, 3.-As a woman, an FBI agent, and the widow of a cop how does she not close her curtains at night in her house? I mean the killer just sat outside her house and watched her. As I write this I've just thought of another question that came to me. Why would she have secure FBI files on her laptop and not a firewall to be found. And please enough of the troubled but brillant killers. A little thought and research would have done this movie well. Did she not have any friends who were hackers that could have helped out. What's up with talking on unsecure phone lines when you know you are dealing with a computer whiz. Enough. Just a really dumb and lazily written movie. For a good cyber-crime thriller read the Blue Nowhere by Jeffery Deaver.

This is a decent rental, but I would advise against buying it. In a movie that fuses a little bit of Copycat with Saw, you have an up and down affair. Though a lot of technical jargon is tossed around, there are many technical errors that even I spotted, and I am far from a computer wiz. There are also several police procedure gaffs that I noticed as well. Still if you suspend some belief, the story is decent, and the deaths are somewhat original. The acting is mostly strong, but nothing incredible. This one is just okay.