Review of Untraceable (2008) by Justin Z — 17 Feb 2009

When the first two minutes of the movie are the only interesting parts of the whole hour and forty one minutes of its run, you know you have a problem. There are so many problems to the movie that it baffles me.

Terrible one-note acting throughout, a ridiculously goofy plot, lazy directing and rampant product placement/homage paying everywhere. Next you add a bunch of characters who serve no purpose than to be the most generic roles in a thriller movie (the comedic relief grandma for one).

Then you add the fact that this is just incredibly BORING at every step. And I don't mean that the movie is slow, but that there is absolutely no tension at any point to the movie. Why? Because almost the entire movie is spent with people looking at the internet.

There's no tension to that, especially when you add a pathetically preachy message about the evils of technology and that all people who use the Internet are sick perverts. Along with that, we get some of the most boring torture sequences I've ever seen.

If you can't even make torture scary, then you have a problem. That makes this one of the least entertaining thrillers I've seen in a long time.