Showtimes for all movies in the area. Click here!

By Cole Smithey

‘Untraceable’

Movie Trailer

2008 gets its first installment of torture porn with a predictable thriller that blames a bloodthirsty public and big media for fostering an atmosphere of retribution violence. Diane Lane gives a solid performance as FBI cyber crimes Special Agent Jennifer Marsh. Marsh discovers an untraceable web site (“killwithme.com”) where a murderer tortures victims at a rate constant with its number of visitors. The unwritten subtext of the gory torture scenes is that the horrific murders pale in comparison to the punishments doled out daily by American military at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prison camps. So long as the American government continues to torture people, it seems we will continue to see horror thrillers like “Untraceable” arrive in cinemas at a steady clip.

“Untraceable” starts with a darkly humorous jab. Our anonymous killer (Joseph Cross, “Running With Scissors”) sits a kitten in front of a sticky rat trap that will ensnare the feline for Web viewers to witness its gradual demise. It’s a back-handedly-benevolent comic narrative gesture that eases the audience into the gruesome torture and violent visual images yet to come.

Special Agent Marsh is a widowed, single mother living in a modest house in Portland, Ore., where her own mother (Mary Beth Hurt) is a fixture. At work, Marsh nails identity thieves and pedophiles that she can call in surgical police strikes against quicker than she can go out for a coffee. As such, her prescient leap of logic about a kitten killer’s inevitable aptitude for torturing people to death comes too quickly to allow for much suspense to build before the first human victim makes his appearance. A taser gun becomes cinema’s modern-day chloroform when a man is abducted in a sports arena parking lot before being stripped, cut and shackled in front of a Web cam with an intravenous needle that speeds bleeding with every new visitor that logs on. Some clever satire attends a discussion among FBI staffers over whether or not to publicize the situation for fear that it will accelerate the man’s death. But their concerns are quickly cancelled when a huge number of Web hits prompt the inescapable fate.

Marsh’s right-hand cyber crimes partner Griffith (Colin Hanks) makes a foreshadowing observation that, if only the victim had been a boy scout, he could have blinked out his location to the camera with Morse code. It’s enough to send viewers on a personal quest to learn the alphabet of dots and dashes should a need ever arise.

Director Gregory Hoblit (“Primal Fear”) ramps up the tension with the second Web cam killing that involves the use of sunlamps. The picture takes on the tone of a “Saw” franchise slasher picture where the mechanical method of insuring a grisly death takes on as much importance as the incident itself. And yet, the keystone of the plot rests on the visually shocking suicide of a college professor who combines a well-placed gunshot with a bridge fall to insure his desired result. The filmmakers outdo themselves with a disturbingly real vision of expiration by suicide that is shown repeatedly to underscore the responsibility of the media to the motives of our resident psycho.  

“Untraceable” provokes discussion over the way snuff films were thought to be the stuff of myths even just a few years ago, but are now widely available to any adventurous Web surfer. It ultimately fails as a thriller because the script is so anxious to make some oblique point about the power of the web and exploitation media that it forgets about Marsh’s underdeveloped psychological journey. There aren’t enough layers of visual meanings for the plot to add up emotionally. What you see is what you get, and as the famous quote about pornography goes, “you know it when you see it.” Death is the new sex in American cinema. CV

‘27 Dresses’

Movie Trailer

Agonizing, flaccid, and about as romantic as bottle of flat champagne, “27 Dresses” is a perfect example of the stereotypical Hollywood romantic comedies that Judd Apatow’s “40 Year Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up” successfully disemboweled. So it’s sadly ironic that Katherine Heigl, the pregnant chick in “Knocked Up,” should show up in such an inferior showcase for her talents. Heigl plays Jane Nichols, a young Manhattanite doomed to be always a bridesmaid and never a bride. Now there’s a novel idea for a movie. Cough. Nichols’ favorite activities revolve around reading the “commitments” section of the newspaper to drool over the wedding ceremonies of lucky couples when she isn’t adding to her collection of bridesmaid dresses (guess how many) from gauche theme weddings that are barf-inducing for their tackiness. The girl who wants what she doesn’t want has to learn the hard way that the man she has a crush on, her boss George (Edward Burns) is a dimwit, after he falls head over heels for Nichols bimbo sister Tess (Malin Akerman). And yes, there is a mandatory montage in which Nichols models all 27 dresses. Yawn.

If the insipid dress changing sequence weren’t insufferable enough to curdle the stomach of every male in the audience, the filmmakers step in cliché poop again when they subject viewers to one of the most tormenting sing along scenes in cinema history. Inebriated Nichols and her also drunk pal Kevin (James Marsden) dance on top of a bar while belting out Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets” along with the jukebox to the feigned approval of cast extras that can hardly hide their disgust at the embarrassing display. Note to screenwriter’s young and old; no sing alongs — ever.

In the process of doing dual bridesmaid duty for two weddings on a Saturday night, busybody Nichols forgets her day planner in the back of a taxi with Kevin, a cynical journalist she’s only just met. Unbeknownst to her, he is the author of her favorite wedding column. He capitalizes on the opportunity her lost diary presents to pitch a story about Nichols’ wedding obsession to his editor.

While Kevin stalks Nichols like a smitten lover with an ulterior motive, she watches her ditzy sister pretend to love dogs, hiking and vegetarianism in order to win over George, the outdoorsy clothing store entrepreneur that Nichols serves as his personal assistant. Screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna (“The Devil Wears Prada”) sabotages even the script’s old lady friendly tone with Nichols bawdy co-worker Casey (Judy Greer), whose job it is to inject crude humor, ostensibly to keep audiences awake between the death knell plot lulls that occur at regular intervals.

From Shepherd Frankel’s cookie cutter production design to Catherine Marie Thomas’ atrocious costumes, “27 Dresses” is a comedy without the necessary visual style, tempo or chemistry to compensate for the script’s tone deaf sense of humor. Sophisticated romantic comedies are the province of French cinema. The worst French romantic comedy looks like a masterpiece compared to a picture like “27 Dresses.” Hollywood has been stuck too long churning out perfunctory wedding cake movies that are predictable for their bogus characters and retreaded gags. Apatow and newcomer Diablo Cody (“Juno”) are invigorating the genre with a precision that takes note of shifting cultural identities. These are vital filmmakers with a sense of the romantic condition of lust, desire, and trial and error. At heart, our lead is a narcissist and exhibitionist who loves spectacle. She doesn’t know the first thing about intimacy or carnality. There’s a name for people who get on top of bars and sing with the jukebox at the top of their lungs; we call them idiots, and let the bouncer do his job. CV

Comment on this story | Return to top