Untraceable

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.