Saturday Night Movie

Norm and I sat down yesterday to watch a Saturday night movie. The kids went to the show which left us to watch a rated R movie. We had been sitting on Untraceable for several weeks and decided to watch the thriller. The movie stars Diane Lane as FBI agent Jennifer Marsh who is a member of a taskforce on cyberspace crime.

If you want to see a good movie in this genre go rent Silence of the Lambs, but this was ok for a rental. We gave it 2.5 out of 4 stars.

*** Spoiler Alert ***

The plot is refreshing as Agent Marsh gets embroiled in a hunt for a crazed serial killer who is using a website to kill victims that he has abducted. The more hits the website gets the quicker the victim are killed. This is done while the victim is being killed via live streaming video on the net.

Diane Lane does another great job as the agent trying to catch the psycho killer. She has just the right amount of geek ness about her and pulls off the mother caught between a career and her family. The antagonist in the film is relative newcomer Joseph Cross. He portrays Owen Reily the psycho serial killer. He has just the right amount of crazy beady eyed look about him and pulls of a credible character sketch. The other characters are non descript and just add to the ensemble.

The location was an interesting choice in Portland. Some of the movie is shot during rainstorms and add to the drama similar to Seven.

The writing and directing were adequate. There could have been better use of the supporting cast and some of the scenes that were left in could have been removed.

If you could disbelieve some of the inaccuracies of the technology then you will like this movie. If you can’t get past it, then you’re going to struggle to get through it as there are no chase scenes or things blowing up.