‘Untraceable’ delivers suspense

Although it opened in fifth place, intelligent moviegoers were able to track down Sony Pictures’ “Untraceable” at the theaters this past weekend. The Internet thriller starring Diane Lane downloaded $11.2 million over the last three days. FBI Special Agent Jennifer Marsh (Lane) makes a living out of investigating and prosecuting criminals on the Internet. She works a lot of evenings with co-worker Griffin Dowd (Colin Hanks), while her mother Stella (Mary Beth Hurt) watches her young daughter Annie (Perla Haney-Jardine). Jennifer gets a post-it note with the web-site www.killwithme.com on it and, upon entering the site, watches a kitty cat get tortured via a webcam. Finding it unsettling, Jennifer begins tracking down the owner of the site, and discovers the individual to be quite elusive or untraceable. Another segment appears on www.killwithme.com, and this time involves an unknown male who was kidnapped outside of a hockey arena. Set up in a torture device, the unknown male slowly dies whenever the public logs onto the site. Simply put, the more hits this site gets, the faster the victims die. Making matters worse for Jennifer is the lack of support she received from her supervisor Richard Brooks (Peter Lewis). She ends up working together with Detective Eric Box (Billy Burke), and their styles manage to mesh well on this investigation. During their time together, Detective Box tells Jennifer that he’d met her once before through his working alongside her deceased husband years ago. The killer soon realizes that Jennifer is hot on his trail and takes his torturing up another notch. He also begins tracking down Jennifer as well by setting up a video camera right outside her home. When someone close to Jennifer becomes a victim, clues left behind help Jennifer and Detective Box track down the killer. “Untraceable” is one of those films that the trailer just gives you enough to want to see it, and you aren’t disappointed. There was enough to make me want to see it, without giving everything away. Unfortunately, the one flaw with this film is that you find out who is the killer way before the end of the movie. However, I’m justifying that with the realization that when officials figure out who it is via the clues left for them. You can actually put two and two together. Academy Award nominee Lane does an outstanding job as Jennifer, a steadfast FBI agent who works nights to spend time with her daughter during the day. She shows her tenacity in her profession, along with the frustration of being called away from her daughter due to work. Although I looked at him as a suspect at first, Hanks’ Dowd is the perfect sidekick for Lane’s Jennifer. The ying to her yang, they work well together in catching bad guys, and have a great relationship beyond the job site. It’s frustrating seeing how hard Jennifer and Dowd work on this case, only to be stonewalled by their boss. His appearances are luckily few and far in between, but still annoying nonetheless. The acting is great, the suspense is nicely built up, and the tortures, well, are a bit gruesome. The first two aren’t as bad, but the second duo are worthy of several look-aways. Thank goodness the final torture never actually comes to fruition. In a horrible weekend that featured “Meet The Spartans” and “Rambo,” it is “Untraceable” that moviegoers should seek out at three and a half out of four stars. “Untraceable” is rated R for some prolonged sequences of strong gruesome violence, and language. Running time is 1 hour, 40 minutes. Last week’s No. 1, Paramount Pictures’ “Cloverfield,” toppled from the top spot to No. 4 with $12.7 million — its ten-day total reaching $64.2 million. For more information and show times, contact Regal Cinemas Marketplace 24, 180 Mill Road, Oaks, at 610-666-6697. Posted by Dennis J. Wright can be reached at dwright@phoenixvillenews.com