'Untraceable' likely to satisfy only sadists

"Untraceable" is a movie designed for sadistic weirdos who like to watch people bleed to death or kittens be killed. You know who you are - the "Saw" fans.

The fact that it stars the likable and gifted Diane Lane and is directed by the sometimes competent Gregory Hoblit is more a curiosity than a selling point.

"Untraceable," aside from Lane, pretends to be decent on another level - a very flagrant level. It suggests that murders viewable at a Web site are aided and abetted by voyeuristic Internet types who are just itching to see things like this. The premise, painfully, may be true. The things that get high ratings on TV nowadays reveal that high moral values are not paramount in our society, or even promoted.

But "Untraceable" is thoroughly unconvincing as some kind of morality tale. It's selling exactly the violence that it pretends to condemn.

Lane, who has elegance and charm upon many occasions, plays an FBI operative who specializes in finding Internet criminals - mostly teenagers who use illegal credit cards and things like that. She is presented as such a bullish, tough smart-aleck that she's somewhat lacking in sympathy from the first. She knows everything. This is one of those movies in which people constantly talk while they're walking. No one stays still, but, still, it's a static movie.

"I need someone to knock down a door," she says when she has cornered a culprit. We know it won't be long until she's quivering.

She comes across a Web site called killwithme.com that features the violent death of a kitten. This is when I'm ready to head for the exit and forget the whole thing, but, after all, this is a job. We don't really have a choice. She thinks the kitten death is a hoax, but she soon learns that the serial killer has more serious prey in mind.

One victim dies by bleeding to death, slowly. Another is burned to death beneath hot lights. Another is steeped in battery acid. Have you had enough yet? In all cases, we are asked to believe there is some type of contraption that makes the death faster when more people "hit" the Web site. In other words, society's own cruel voyeurism is the culprit. Viewers' morbid curiosity makes them an accomplice in these murders. Sorry, can't buy that.

Colin Hanks plays Lane's faithful lab partner. Mary Beth Hurt, unrecognizable, is a mom. The killer, identified early in the film (too early), is played by the boyish Joseph Cross, who starred in "Running With Scissors." Ultimately, there is a believable, and interesting, motive for his killing spree.

Lane could not be this desperate for work. This type role is usually left to the less demanding Ashley Judd who, for a while, was turning out two of these women-in-jeopardy movies a year.

Director Hoblit proved that he could weave suspense in "Primal Fear," which made a star out of Edward Norton, and in the neatly plotted "Fracture" with Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling. Here, he lets the gore rule.

There is some theory that people who liked "Silence of the Lambs" and "Se7en" will like this film. If so, hop to it. It's all yours, but don't eat dinner before you go.

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-22347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com