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Untraceable
Screen Gems (Sony)


4.9

based on 30 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 33 votes
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Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for grisly violence and torture, and some language

Starring Diane Lane, Billy Burke, Colin Hanks, Joseph Cross, and Mary Beth Hurt

Within the FBI, there exists a division dedicated to investigating and prosecuting criminals on the internet. Welcome to the front lines of the war on cybercrime, where Special Agent Jennifer Marsh has seen it all......until now. A tech-savvy internet predator is displaying his graphic murders on his own website -- and the fate of each of his tormented captives is left in the hands of the public: the more hits his site gets, the faster his victims die. When this game of cat and mouse becomes personal, Marsh and her team must race against the clock to track down this technical mastermind who is virtually untraceable. (Screen Gems-Sony)

GENRE(S):	Crime \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Robert Fyvolent Mark R. Brinker Allison Burnett
DIRECTED BY:	Gregory Hoblit
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: May 13, 2008 Theatrical: January 25, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	100 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A horrifying thriller, smart and tightly told, and merciless.

Variety Joe Leydon

Unfolding like a better-than-average episode of a first-rate TV police procedural, Untraceable is a satisfying slice of solidly crafted meat-and-potatoes filmmaking.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

Highly watchable, anchored sturdily by Lane's convincing performance.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust

If Dick Wolf is interested in doing a "Law & Order: Cyber Crimes," he could do worse than to follow the lead of Untraceable, a diverting police procedural about an FBI unit tasked with sleuthing the Internet for mouse-wielding bad guys.

Entertainment Weekly Clark Collis

Lane skillfully sells the tech-heavy script. But after a much-too-early reveal of the murderer's identity, the ''low battery'' signal starts to flash on this film by thriller specialist Gregory Hoblit, director of last year's far superior "Fracture."

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

I like the idea of a cybercrimes agent cracking cases through superior knowledge of the Internet. Marsh could be a great heroine for a continuing series. But Untraceable essentially forces its audience to identify with those who would be willing accomplices to torture and murder. To understate the point, that's not an audience-friendly approach.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Lane gives the film her best shot; she's pretty much the only reason to see it. There's an intelligence mixed with ferocity that makes her performance compelling, far-more-so than anything else in the film.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

From its very first scene, Untraceable isn't the sophisticated, brainy thriller it so nearly could have been, but just another movie about a serial murderer.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The film, which has the ingredients for a thoughtful, tense thriller throws away a compelling first half so it can descend into silliness and clichés.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Over and over again, Hoblit misses opportunities to make an engaging picture, instead giving us a merely pedestrian one.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Even worse than its hypocrisy, gratuitous homophobia and cheap proselytizing, the movie is dull.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Kamal AL-Solaylee

While the punishments and triumphs are absolute, the entertainment value is highly equivocal. This ultimately relegates Untraceable to the ranks of so-so thrillers with legitimate but half-developed intellectual aspirations. And since you inspired the movie in the first place, part of the responsibility rests on, well, you.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Travis Nichols

A genuinely creepy film, though not in a "No Country for Old Men" kind of way. More in an overzealous-blog-comments kind of way, or a dude-on-the-bus-looking-at-me kind of way. Just ugh.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Not only does Untraceable unmask its initially hidden killer with little ceremony, it's the sort of film that telegraphs every new development.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

Yet another mediocre-to-lame thriller shot in Portland.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

Computer movies have come a long way since the good old days of monitors projecting vector graphics on hackers’ faces, but there are still some forehead slappers in Untraceable.

Empire Ian Freer

A competent suspenser, helped by the always-dependable Diane Lane, but it suffers by following the modern thriller playbook to the letter.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

An abhorrent cyberthriller starring a compelling Diane Lane.

Boston Globe Janice Page

It's a warmed-over suspense thriller that's more disturbing than it is surprising or scary.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The latest, Untraceable, owes everything to “Lambs,” and to “Se7en,” and to all the “Lambs” and “Se7en” knockoffs made by directors less talented than Jonathan Demme and David Fincher. In addition to being dull, the Portland, Ore. -set Untraceable is a monster hypocrite, wagging its finger at the mass audience’s appetite for strictly regimented, “creative” torture scenarios.

USA Today Claudia Puig

A wan version of the same old tired serial killer story, despite its updated milieu -- cyberspace.

Village Voice Nathan Lee

Directed by Gregory Hoblit from a screenplay by a trio (a trio!) of whomevers, Untraceable hasn't the brains of a class-act psychothriller like "The Silence of the Lambs" (though it does reprise that film's titillating homophobia); worse yet, it lacks the balls to juice up the trashy verve of the "Saw" series.

New York Post Kyle Smith

The movie chides us for being a sick voyeuristic society, hungry for the sight of violence. The purity of this moral stance is somewhat clouded by the movie's habit of staging sick violent acts.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Tepid, borderline offensive cyber-serial killer thriller.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

You may view Untraceable, as I do, as a repugnant example of the voyeurism it pretends to condemn.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

By now the hypocrisy of simultaneously condemning and exploiting the audience's sadism has become so commonplace in American movies it hardly seems noteworthy.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

This joyless thriller runs the gamut from unconscionable through unwatchable to unendurable.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Talk about your pious frauds. I've got a better way to show your disgust for Internet scum: Don't see Untraceable.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

As plain awful as Untraceable is, possibly the worst thing about it is that it pretends to mean something.

Time Richard Corliss

Untraceable really is disgraceable. It's bad enough when a movie offers up atrocity scenes that would make the Nanking soldiers seem like Hannah Montana; it's repellent when the movie dresses up the sadism in a moral message that condemns the very weakness it is exploiting.

The average user rating for this movie is 4.9 (out of 10) based on 33 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

justin m. gave it a10:
Thrilling, great acting.

nchatana n. gave it a0:
Totally predictable, God bless America for making this kind of bullshit.

Jessie C. gave it a2:
This movie was aweful! I am typically a big fan of crime/thriller shows and movies, but I couldn't make it all the way through. The killer is identified immediately, which means that the only suspense involved is waiting for more bloodshed. Far too grusome in my opinion! The only plus was the cast.

Tony B. gave it a6:
Somewhat hypocritical in exploiting what it purports to condemn and marred by some plot development holes, "Untraceable" still grabs hold of you and does not let go until its satisfyingly abrupt ending. Diane Lane does her usual fine job and is ably supported by a good cast.

Jared B. gave it a9:
When I first saw the trailers for this movie, I was, to say the least, repulsed. My first impression was, "Oh, this will be just another boring 'torture porn' movie. Well, I was partially right. While this movie fell neatly into the 'torture porn' category, it was anything but boring. For the whole hour and forty-one minute length of the film, I was on the edge of my seat. Diane Lane, whose last good movie was "Unfaithful,' is excellent as Jennifer, an investigator with the FBI's cybercrimes unit. One day, she and her partner, played by Colin Hanks, stumble upon a site, where the webmaster kidnaps various people and tortures them. The more hits this website gets, the faster the victims die. At first, Jennifer treats this as just another case. That is, until someone very close to her becomes the killer's next victim. My only problem with this movie was the end. For those who have yet to see this movie, I won't spoil it. To everyone else, were you as frustrated by this as I was? Besides this one minor flaw, I gotta say, I found this to be an enjoyable, tense, well-made thriller. Pick up a copy and enjoy.

Jim O gave it a2:
Boring and uninteresting characters tell a story of a "elite" computer hacker who kills and is "untraceable". So bad.

Andy W. gave it a0:
This film tries to be clever, but fails miserably. In between the detectives clumsy attempts to find the perpetrator are political barbs from the tired rhetoric of the right. Net neutrality, pirating and pornography are all attacked in cheap shots that barely associate with the plot. The writers ulterior motives leaked into the films and it was hard not to be pissed off watching this. A sharp viewer will come up with plenty of solutions to the idiotic issue and the end is shockingly boring.

Untraceable Screen Gems (Sony)

Untraceable
Screen Gems (Sony)