Special Agent Jennifer Marsh (Diane Lane) is the best at what she does. The woman works in a little-known unit of the FBI specializing in stopping cyber crime, and in a few clicks of a mouse she and her equally talented assistant Griffin Dowd (Colin Hanks) can bring perpetrators of all types to justice virtually in an instant.

Diane Lane in Screen Gems' Untraceable

All that changes when a new predator starts stalking the cybernetic superhighway. Based at a website called killwithme.com, this intelligent and deeply psychotic madman has started setting up intricate deathtraps where those responsible for the murders are the ones logging onto see the site. Every new user brings victims one more step towards death, the mastermind behind all this carnage using the FBI’s own tools of surveillance and investigation against them.

Teaming up with local Portland, OR detective Eric Box (Billy Burke), the female Special Agent and her right-hand man Griffin must use all their technical bravado to bring this brutal genius to justice. But now his attentions have turned towards those pursuing him, the driven single mother Jennifer the one he wants the world to help him kill next.

Untraceable is horrendous. One of the most laughably scripted thrillers I’ve possibly ever seen, this Saw meets Silence of the Lambs meets Se7en knockoff is so ludicrous and idiotic my head was almost sent spinning from the sheer freakish stupidity of it. Lane deserves better. Heck, the audience deserves better, and for anyone out there even remotely thinking of sitting through the darn thing please let me urge you to reconsider.

Seriously, there are simply not words for how unbelievably asinine all of this turns out to be. On the surface, you get the feeling director Gregory Hoblit (who made Primal Fear, an actual good movie, go figure) and his cadre of screenwriters are trying to make some sort of point here. There is commentary about the voyeuristic nature of the internet. There is commentary about the moral devolution of our society. There is commentary on the topic of work superseding parenting. All of it is contradicted time and time again, however, the filmmakers bringing up an idea only to summarily forget about it and instead play down to the very audience bloodlust they were only seconds before railing against.

There is a lot more I could say, but most of it isn’t worth the effort it would take to do so. The best example of just how insipid all of this becomes is a scene where Jennifer has her car hacked and left for computer-addled death leaving her stranded standing in the middle of a rain-soaked bridge. She’s got a gun. She’s talked to her fellow officers on roadside phone. She’s got plenty of room to run for safety.

So what does she do? Well, when her car mysteriously starts working again she climbs right back inside, remembering to check on the cat in the pet carrier but not in the back seat of her massive, recently taken over and out of her control, SUV. Guess what happens next. 

Seriously, I don’t have time for this. In point of fact, neither should audiences. This movie is a piece of recycled garbage and is a waste of Lane’s, and pretty much everyone else’s in the cast, talents. What’s missing from Untraceable is a reason to even still be talking about it, and if you happen to find one then you’ve got a heck of a lot more patience for crap then me.

Film Rating: ê (out of 4)

-  Untraceable Theatrical Trailer