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posted Friday, February 1, 2008 - Volume 36 Issue 05 |
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Unwatchable Untraceable an exercise in hypocrisy |
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| Unwatchable Untraceable an exercise in hypocrisy |
by Rajkhet Dirzhud-Rashid -
SGN A&E Writer
UNTRACEABLE
NOW PLAYING
I don't remember the person who said it, but I'll never forget the quote by a professor of journalism that my Junior College teacher quoted to our classroom of future journalists. The quote says that the American public basically watches television every night hoping for two things: to see live sex, and to see live death. Well, years later, I can truly say that the latter seems to have already happened and unfortunately instead of being horrified, the American public is eating up news footage of bloody accidents, and graphic video footage from our war overseas like it was caviar. Makes one truly sick to the stomach.
That's also the response - the being sick to my stomach, not eating it up like caviar part - that I experienced watching yet another "internet violence is horrible, but let's make this film about it even more horrible" film, Untraceable. True, the subject of people who watch gory internet videos and frequent live-action "violence porn" sites is a good one to study, but this film - with its voyeuristic approach and unnecessarily graphic violence - isn't that film. Nope, this is just an excuse to expose even more impressionable folks (who, like the truly unpleasant audience I watched this film with, are mostly loner males) to the idea that violence is entertainment. In fact, it was the reaction of two of the more vocal of these irritating men's reaction (giggles!) after watching the film that made my blood boil enough to shout at them. Something I rarely do, no matter how awful of an audience I've had to endure while watching an unwatchable film.
True, Diane Lane, as the harried single parent FBI detective trying to bring the creep running live video of his victims being tortured to death, is pretty good at this role. But, to sit through this awful, awful film just so you can bask in the glory that is Diane Lane? Not worth it, and also there's what I've noticed as a common theme in Hollywood films here lately, in that characters watch horrible things happen to good people - she even has to watch a close friend tortured to death on her computer screen - but no one touches or comforts anyone. So, we can have graphic, stomach-wrenching violence, but sex, or even the hint of it, or heck, just one character hugging one who's crying? No, none of that. Which makes one wonder, is Untraceable trying to say computers have desensitized us all, or is the film just more of the problem? Me, I'd save my dollars if I were you and see something good, like The Bucket List, or P.S. I Love You.
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