Untraceable (Dvd)

Three to five years ago this would have stared Ashley Judd, but she has moved on to bigger and better things (like Bug (2006), I guess). So Diane Lane fills her sassy cop loafers to put away this particular bad guy, and this leads me to a discussion of the fate of 40+ actresses. They seem to be segregated to the waste bin of movies, left to play menopausal newly single mothers who need to learn to date again, over sexed fashionistas, or, as in this case, hard nosed cops. Other than the occasional role as Queen Elizabeth (any of them), or the portrayal of a mental disorder, the meaty roles are nowhere to be found. Hell, Cate Blanchett got nominated this year by playing a man! I posit this question, is it that no one wants to write these films? Or is it that no one sees these films? Or, is it something else?

Leaving that lofty question in the air I bring you down to this waste of marquee space. If you watched the trailer I’m sure you already know the entire plot sans one or two details. You already know Colin Hanks character dies, in what is an emotionally tough loss for the already frazzled Jennifer, played by Diane Lane. I’m sure you know that the killer is caught by his own hubris. I’m also sure you know that her family is somehow threatened, but ultimately o.k. This film is nothing new or even relatively interesting.

Why did we pick this up from Blockbuster then? Well, my wonderful wife got me a Playstation 3 for my birthday. If you are not familiar with these behemoths they are both a gaming system and a Blu-ray DVD player. When we went to the Blockbuster to pick out a movie this was one of the only ones in the meager selection of movies that we hadn’t watched in that format, and I wanted to see what the new system could do. Simply put, it can waste our afternoon with crystal clarity.

To continue, I also have a hatred for internet/computer films. I’m sure all professionals who see films about their professions think this, but they never get it right and end up sounding incredibly stupid.
“Oh no, the criminal hacked the kernel and concatenated hidden bits on the end of each program counter so the instruction cycle would print out to an IO and he would eventually be able to take over the assembly language!”
Guh. The writer of this script must have grabbed the latest copy of Interwebs For Dummies to type up this dialog. The movie going public doesn’t care; they wouldn’t know what you were talking about anyway. The only people that would know what you are talking about will hate you for failing to even get it close. On that note, the film also displayed a distinct hatred for the internet. It tried to make it look like a dark alley where predators stalk any who venture in.

I recommend that you quickly close this browser and shut down your computer. This movie thinks the web will kill you.

2 out of 10 – Thankfully, no one wants to watch this, so I don’t feel obligated to discourage you from watching it.