Skew Review: Untraceable

Last week, we rented Untraceable, a murder/mystery/thriller starring Diane Lane. Without getting into spoilers, it shows a special unit of the FBI that tracks down pedophiles, identity thieves, and any other online crimes.

I thought the movie did a good job of capturing the dark side of the internet. While I'm sure some of the techno-jargon (which sounded realistic) could be picked apart by our wannabe-Vulcan friends out there, and the ending of the movie could be construed as cheesy ... I think the symbolic act by the FBI agent at the very end of the movie illustrates our responsibilities when we visit the web.

Damian recently wrote an article that touches on one of the areas where we the viewer are responsible for our actions whether we understand that or not -- viewing online copyrighted material on Youtube. The first comment to that article was along the lines of the premise of the movie Untraceable -- we can't expect that there aren't consequences for surfing and posting without regard to copyright and other laws.

Anyway, I like it when Hollywood makes a movie that attempts to confront the moral and ethicial implications of something new that's going on in society -- while not perfect, I think Untraceable delivers a strong message to viewers that, even on the internet, cause and effect happens. That means you, craigslisters!