Film

Untraceable’s villain is an evil cybergenius who sets up a webcam and attaches his victims to Rube Goldberg torture devices; these, in turn, are somehow hooked into a computer that measures the website’s hits. The more people who visit the site, the faster the victims die—and the visitors become accomplices through their own prurient interests. Name-checking the NSA and Daniel Pearl, Untraceable aspires to make a statement on culpability in the YouTube era—although by courting the Saw crowd with a series of increasingly grisly murders, the movie adheres to a calculus not dissimilar to the killer’s.

Still, as hypocritical, borderline diseased, January-released knockoffs of Seven go, Untraceable is more involving than you might expect, thanks to Lane’s customary professionalism—she’s the put-upon, chronically ignored FBI agent—and a certain breezy absurdity. At one point, Lane’s assistant (Hanks) calls her to announce that he’s discovered the hidden link between the killer and the first victim. He’ll be sure to tell her…after he gets back to the office. (Two guesses if he makes it back; the first doesn’t count.) The killer, meanwhile, is as omniscient as the story requires, hacking into not only Lane’s daughter’s computer but also her car’s GPS. Hoblit has gotten away with wild implausibility before (see Primal Fear), but Untraceable’s aspirations to seriousness are ultimately what make it seem like a bit of a hoax.