"Untraceable" goes too far

The creators of “Untraceable” want to tell audience members that, in no uncertain terms, torture-porn entertainment is bad. Very bad.

They do that by filling the screen with ugly torture-porn images and then rubbing the viewers’ noses in them during this grisly R-rated thriller.

In recent months, extreme fright films such as the “Saw” series and the “Hostel” franchise have pushed the boundaries of acceptable screen imagery by photographing people being sadistically sliced, diced and slaughtered. Many fans have turned their backs on such fare, but the producers of “Untraceable” didn’t seem to notice.

During the course of the story, victims are drained of blood, fried by spotlights and bathed in acid. It’s all rather ugly and mean, and those who object to such imagery will run out of theaters faster than Britney Spears sprinted away from Dr. Phil.

Not even the gifted Diane Lane, who’s enjoyed success with feel-good romantic comedies such as “Must Love Dogs” and “Under the Tuscan Sun,” can save it. Lane’s advisors obviously wanted her to go in an edgier direction with her career, which brought her to “Untraceable.”

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In the picture, FBI Special Agent Jennifer Marsh (Lane) cracks down on criminals using the Internet for various scams and illegal activities. The widowed agent, who lives in Portland with her mother (Mary Beth Hurt) and 8-year-old daughter and works with a baby-faced FBI partner (Colin Hanks), becomes the lead investigator in a case involving a crazed computer whiz.

He kidnaps victims, puts them in deadly traps and then allows Internet users to watch them suffer.

Lane throws herself into the role (which in some ways echoes Jodie Foster’s FBI agent in “The Silence of the Lambs”), but she receives little support from a script that paints the villain as more pathetic than pathological. Director Gregory Hoblit (“Fracture”) moves the story elements along, but except for a couple of four-letter words and the graphic death scenes, “Untraceable” seems more like an average episode of TV’s “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” than a major motion picture.

To his credit, Hoblit gives Lane a shining moment in the climactic scene in which she goes mano a mano with the villain, but for too much of the time, “Untraceable” presents the FBI characters as dazed and confused agents who are glued to their computer screens and seem more like the Geek Squad than the Mod Squad.

FILM REVIEW

“Untraceable”

Grade: C+

Starring: Diane Lane, Colin Hanks and Mary Beth Hurt; produced by Steven Pearl, Andy Cohen, Tom Rosenberg, Gary Lucchesi and Hawk Koch; written by Robert Fyvolent, Mark R. Brinker and Allison Burnett; directed by Gregory Hoblit.

Running Time: 100 minutes.

Parental Guide: R rating (extremely strong violence, scenes of torture, harsh four-letter profanity).