Lane, great; the film, torture

Call it "torture porn" or call it "gorno" (gore + porno). Can we just agree to call a moratorium on movies like

Untraceable

?

An abhorrent cyberthriller starring a compelling Diane Lane, the film exploits the inhumanity of torture as it cynically condemns Internet rubberneckers (and by extension, moviegoers) for watching it online. No one ever lost money overestimating the hypocrisy of the American filmgoer, as directors from Cecil B. DeMille to David Fincher (circa Se7en) well know. But still.

The sociopath in Untraceable puts his victims in life-threatening situations (under high-watt sunlamps, attached to an IV of anticoagulant) and streams images of their mouse-in-trap agitation via his Internet site, killwithme.com. The more Web-surfers click on his Internet snuff movie, the faster the victim dies. Voyeurs become accomplices to murder, bringing new meaning to the term "Internet hit."

Lane, her weary face as lived-in as it is lovely, is Jennifer Marsh, an FBI agent in the Cyber Crimes Division working out of the bureau's Portland, Ore., office. A single mom, Jennifer works nights - ostensibly to see her 8-year-old daughter to the school bus and pick her up after school, but really so that director Gregory Hoblit (Primal Fear, Fracture) can put mother and child in maximum jeopardy.

Lane brings the full force of her magnetism to the role of the Fed so revulsed by cybercrime that she deploys every weapon in her intellectual and physical arsenals to stop it. Never mind how excellent Lane is. A film like this is only as good as its villain, and the antagonist here is one of those Hollywood-confected creatures who can make a bomb from Bisquick and a murder weapon from a rototiller, but otherwise is about as substantial as a shadow.

No matter that Lane is fascinating to watch (in no small part because she's that rare actress over 40 whose face isn't a plastic-surgery case study), no matter that it's always a kick to see a woman-driven thriller, I loathed, loathed, loathed Untraceable.

Directed by Gregory Hoblit. With Diane Lane, Colin Hanks, Mary Beth Hurt and Joseph Cross. Distributed by Screen Gems.

Running time: 1 hour, 36 mins.

Parent's guide: R (violent torture, gore, profanity)

Playing at: area theatersEndText