Untraceable

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Gregory Hoblit is an auteur of competant, sometimes enjoyable and mostly generic Hollywood entertainments, often shot through some faux-artsy blue or green filter, desaturated colors, etc. Like last year's Fractured, or Hart's War.

I kinda dig movies like Untraceable, because for all their pretentions of being, I dunno, stylish, high concept thrillers or whatever, they are essentially big budget horror movies with an A-list cast. I mean, really this one is no more than a slightly classed-up version of Saw. But shift the focus more to the detectives than the victims, throw Diane Lane in there and it's no longer a horror movie, it's a thriller and somehow it's more respectable to some folk. You know, even though it's about a sadistic serial killer killing off people in bizarre ways, and is just as violent as a typical horror movie and with essentially the same story, it somehow plays bigger with middle aged couples.

Untraceable doesn't quite work, but I do have one bit of strong praise, and it has to do with the identity of the killer. Way back when, when I saw the trailer for Untraceable, I was convinced that the killer was going to turn out to be Colin Hanks' sidekick character. There were all these shots of a mysterious figure in a hood, so it seemed obvious to me that this was one of those movies with a mysterious killer who inevitably turns out to be someone the heroine knows. In fact, the killers pretty much always turn out to be a law enforcement official.

So I was a little surprised that about 30 minutes in, they flat out show you who the killer is, and he's not someone the heroine knows, living a double life. He's just a dude. So I figured, this can't be all. He's going to have a partner. Colin Hanks will turn out to be in cahoots with him. But then Colin Hanks gets abducted and the cops watch him get killed on the internet. Okay then, I thought, maybe he's just faking his death. But nope, he's dead. And no one else turns out to be the killer's cohort. There's no last minute twist.

So, kudos to you Untraceable, few serial killer movies outside of Se7en have the nerve to not have the killer turn out to be someone from the main cast. Even Saw withheld the killer's identity and made it a big twist ending even though it was completely arbitary. But not you. You're showing uncommon restraint.