Untraceable (2008)

The critical blurbs of the serial killer thriller "Untraceable" compare it to "Se7en" and "The Silence of the Lambs." I only can assume the critics who said this were paid by studio maker Sony. "Untraceable" is never less than intriguing, but it's a washout. Here, the murderer kidnaps first a cat then a series of people, and then live streams their tortuous deaths on the Internet. The sick joke: The more people who watch, the faster and grislier the death. Our hero is Jennifer March (Diane Lane), who works the FBI's cyber unit. Plot holes abound: Marsh and family are threatened by the killer who stalks their home, and yet no one is offered protection. When the murderer hacks her computer, they never think to investigate the data he's stolen. Not even SpyBot is employed. The movie pretends to preach against audiences hooked on gore, yet it all thrives on just that. Think back to "Se7en" and "SOTL," there's no or little actual on-screen violence. And they worked. I was terrified. Here, director Gregory Hoblit has the camera stare as acid eats away a man's skin. Terrified? No. I was going, "Good makeup." C