Movie Reviews

I thought the torture porn thing was dead (or maybe I just wished it was).  I don’t know if Diane Lane was blackmailed into this or if she’s simply off her meds, but either way it’s obvious she needs help.  What an Academy Award nominated actress is doing in this piece o’ shit is beyond me.

Untraceable
1 Star

I’m not a fan of torture porn which usually make as much sense to me as Nicole Richie‘s celebrity.  These types of films throw logic and common sense out the window in favor of sadism, torture, violence and gore.  A “good” one will make you uncomfortable and raise issues such as morality and social norms.  A bad one will bore you to no end, cause you to wonder if it was written by mentally retarded insane people with low IQ’s, and make you feel sorry for everyone involved.  Untraceable is the latter.

Jennifer Marsh (Diane Lane) is the head of an FBI task force focused on cyber crime.  When a serial killer (Joseph Cross) creates a website that allows users to kill his victims based on page hits, Jenny and her gang go to work to catch him.

This film is riddled with so many issues it’s hard to decide where to begin.  I don’t know if they used the same technological consultant as Firewall (read that review) but considering it’s back-assward logic and lack of technical understanding it seems likely.

Our killer, with no real training, is the world’s most unstoppable computer hacker who creates Internet sites which can’t be traced or shut down, designs elaborate traps and torture devices that are activated and affected by users around the country (but doesn’t allow foreign access), and hacks into cell phones, the FBI, and OnStar.  And he can do this because?

This movie actually makes Firewall look plausible.

Those familiar with the genre of torture porn will get what you expect.  Victims are trapped in overly-elaborate traps and we get to watch them die painful deaths.  Joy.  Sadly though it’s the audience who gets tortured.  The story makes no sense, nor does the investigation which makes Nostradamus-like leaps in logic and plot to try and corral this wildly implausible tale.  And even if you can ignore all the bad dialogue, script problems, and lame torture scenes, the film still fails to entertain in even the smallest possible way.

Lane gives a nice performance, as do Colin Hanks and Billy Burke as part of her team, but that’s far from enough to save this catastrophe from itself.  You will groan, you will laugh (at the constant stupidity), and you will feel real pain (at having to watch), but you won’t be entertained, frightened, or amused.  And if I haven’t steered you away from this witless wonder, and you are still curious, just wait six to eight months and pull it out of the bargain DVD bin (where it truly belongs).

Two brothers in financial stress choose to embark on a crime that leads to murder, guilt, and broken lives.  No, this isn’t Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, it’s Woody Allen returning to the conscience and consequence of murder he previously explored in films such as Match Point and Crimes and Misdemeanors.  So is it worth your time?  Well, that’s the real question, isn’t it?

Cassandra’s Dream
3 Stars

Ian (Ewan McGregor) and Terry (Colin Farrell) are brothers living outside their means.  Ian has dreams of running hotels in California and a new expensive girlfriend (Hayley Atwell).  Terry has a wife (Sally Hawkins) and a sizable gambling debt.  Stuck in a situation without any alternatives the brothers reach out to their wealthy Uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson) who agrees to give them the cash they need in exchange for one simple favor – murder a man who is set to testify against him (Philip Davis).

If this sounds familiar you probably saw Sidney Lumet‘s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead released earlier this year which involves a similar tale of brothers in financial difficulty choosing to commit a crime.  The film is also very similar to Woody Allen‘s earlier films Crimes and Misdemeanors and Match Point (read that review) without adding anything new to the equation.  The film is well done and the story is engaging enough, but we are constantly noticing we have seen this all done before, and done better.

Much like the new remake of Sleuth this film is more a curiosity than anything else.  The only interesting piece of the tale is the casting against type of both McGreggor and Farrell.  It’s kind of interesting to watch McGreggor play the hard ass and Farrell play the conscience of the film.  Although this makes for a cool acting exercise for both of them it isn’t really enough to carry the film.

Cassandra’s Dream isn’t a bad film, it’s just one that we’ve seen many times before in both story and style.  At this time of year it’s hard to find quality movies at the theater and Cassandra’s Dream certainly qualifies as a well-made film.  But it doesn’t really qualify as a well-made Woody Allen film.  If you’re curious enough give it a try, but otherwise head to the video store and spend a little less on one of his other, better, films.