Untraceable

"He's hacked into my car's computer!"

So exclaims Diane Lane's character in the thriller Untraceable. I had heard all kinds of awful things about this film in the weeks around it's release, but I was surprised at how watchable it turned out to be. No doubt director Gregory Hoblit should get the credit for that after nice turns with Primal Fear and Frequency. Hoblit tried to class things up with a boring film Fracture that boasted the acting chops of Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling. He (Hoblit) feels much more comfortable here with semi-implausible-land and a certain lack of decorum. Untraceable could've gone a different way and made this a sleazy whodunit that could creep into cult land, but instead you get a middling thriller.

Lane is on the case as Jane Marsh who is in the FBI cybercrimes division. Teamed with partner Griffin Dowd (Collin Hanks in all his post pubescent dorkiness) they mostly deal with losers who steal credit card info before stumbling onto a site where a cat is brutally killed live. Marsh wants to get the sonabitch on general principle, but the game is soon changed when the cat is replaced by a man. Enter Det. Box (Billy Burke - a Hoblit fav) as the Portland cop trying to find the missing man. The victim is being streamed live online where the more hits the site gets, the faster the man will die. The public start eating this shit up and the man soon dies. Will the cyberteam catch the killer or will the killer catch them? Probably both in a movie like this.

I have to agree with a writer from the AVclub in that this film would have been better served if the bad guy's identity was kept to the very end. And you also get that Untraceable was gonna get a little dirty with Lane's character spending a lot of time with the Detective. Random nudity from Diane Lane could only help differentiate between the rest of the ho-drum thrillers of this ilk.

A lot of talk was also given to the implausability of the plot... well duh it is a movie. Most of the twists require the same suspension of disbelief that you had to have to enjoy prior Hoblit films. What the film lacked was that complete go for the throat attitude that could have made this a perennial watch. Instead you get an average thriller that has a crush on the Saw films. Not as bad as you think... they should put that quote on the DVD box.

60/100

Streets of Fire

Walter Hill was a hot shit director coming off a huge success with 48hrs when he set out to bring action, music, and cheesy 80's fashions together in Streets of Fire. Now I admire a man who thinks big and wants to do something different, but I can't really say that it all works here. First the story is of a rock singer just breaking through to the big time named Ellen Aim (Diane Lane) who gets kidnapped by the nefarious Raven (Willem Dafoe). Raven leads a gang of bikers named The Bombers who have been ruthless on the small town Richmond (which appears to be a small town in Chicago whatever that means). Reva (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) reaches out to her brother Tom (Michael Pare) to rescue the lass. You see Tom and Ellen once dated until he ran off and joined the Army. What follows is an orgy of violence, bad 80's neon lighting, and cheesy lipsynched songs.

The first problem is casting Diane Lane who isn't able to sing her own songs. Perhaps back then the idea of lipsynching was so prevalent, but for this day and age Lane's work is pretty bad. What not just get a gal who can sing? Surely there was another fetching lass who could have brought that to the table?

The second problem lies within the cornball 80's crap thrown in with the costumes and set pieces. Do we really need the neon lighting and the pop not rock music from the day? No we don't especially when you've gone out of your way to make a lot of the set and wardrobe to resemble the 50's.

The last problem is in the music itself. Almost all of the songs represent the 80's style of music when a soundtrack out of Eddie and the Cruisers would have worked much better. Instead you get leftover Pat Benatar material as performed by someone not Diane Lane. Parts of the score by Ry Cooder is good however. Part of it seems to a riff taken from Springsteen's I'm A Rocker that is repeated over and over through the intro. After that you get classic Cooder guitar that was the best thing about the previous Walter Hill/Cooder collaboration Southern Comfort.

The acting is generally solid. Pare is pretty much one note, but he does that note very well. You get a nice side performance from Rick Moranis as Ellen's manager. Look for cameos by Rick Rossavich, Bill Paxton, and Mykelti T. Williamson. All in all, the film just needed a tougher, leaner image for this to work. By the time Raven and Tom duke it out at the end, you never really get a sense of danger on the line. I had a good time despite all over the failures here, but I'm not sure that's a good thing.

60/100

* Got to mention that the movie gets it's title from the Springsteen song and somehow the producers were unable to attain the rights to use the song. One might have thought that would have something you do before you make the film.

Gunshy (No not that gawdawful Sandra Bullock movie)

Jake Bridges (William Peterson) is a down and out writer who has just lost his job at his paper. Bridges was once one of the top journalists out there, but seems to have lost his drive along with his wife. Bridges finds her in bed with another man one day and decides to move to where the losers can turn into turn into winners or wind up dead.

In Atlantic City, Bridges befriends Frankie (Michael Wincott) and his lovely girlfriend Melissa (Diane Lane). Frankie wants to help Jake by getting him a job as his assistant... it's just that Frankie is the muscle for a small time mob crew. All Frankie wants in return is for Jake to teach him a little bit of culture. Frankie longs for his break out of Jersey to experience more of what life has to offer. Needless to say, things aren't what they seem plus Jake falls in love with Melissa.

There are a lot of cliches floating around in this film from director Jeff Celentano. The setup is tremendously boring and a mess, but once you get in you do find some good stuff. The relationship between Frankie and Jake gives you at least 30 solid minutes of unique interplay. Peterson reminds you that he is heads and tails the best actor in the cast with a solid performance here. Wincott is stuck doing a cheap accent while lousy Springsteen wannabe music plays in the background. Lane sleepwalks through most of the film. It almost feels like a few scenes were written for the leads while a craptacular plot was added on to make it a movie.

Gunshy tries to toe the line of drama and dark comedy. It would have been much better if it wouldn't have pulled it's punches and went all out dark. To see Peterson go into a downward moral spiral would've been hella interesting considering his substantial acting chops (See Manhunter or To Live and Die in LA). You get a sense of Jake starting to like the life of Frankie, but by the time you get to the good stuff you've sat through a hour of setup.

50/100