The year is 2008 and computers are a part of everyday life, but very rarely do I stop to think about the truly amazing technology they provide each day.
With the Internet, I can book a flight to Las Vegas in less than five minutes, read the latest breaking news, watch a Florida student yell, "Don't tase me, Bro!" during a Sen. John Kerry forum and simply communicate with my 84-year-old grandmother about the latest gossip without the need of a stamp.
These programmers are good.
However, when it comes to the big screen, Hollywood traditionally has a difficult time creating interesting movies about computer programmers at work, especially suspense films ("WarGames" and "Disclosure" are a couple exceptions).
A programmer's decision-making process — while sitting in front of a computer screen — may be important work, but translation to an effective action picture is another task entirely.
That is one of the problems with "Untraceable."
The film stars the ever-capable and likeable Diane Lane as FBI agent Jennifer Marsh who fights cyber crime.
Very early in the film, in her homeland-security-like office in Portland, Ore., Marsh punches keys on her keyboard, calls out names of servers and advanced programs at a lighting-pace and — within about three minutes of screen time — catches a bad guy swindling John Q. Public's money via the Internet.
Neat! But stretching Marsh's gaze at a computer screen into a two-hour suspense picture is, well, a stretch.
So, the writers created a character opposite Marsh, a villain who murders people on their Web site.
The catch is the bad guy hooks up the victims to some crazy contraptions with lots of wires and blinking switches that are then directly tied to the number of visitors traveling to the site.
The more hits to the Web site, the faster the weird-looking apparatus kills the victim.
And the villain's pretty crafty as the FBI can't trace his or her whereabouts.
To make matters worse, the machines don't simply pull a trigger from a gun by themselves, but rather kill in gruesome, inventive ways to murder in the tradition of "Saw."
I won't dive into too many details here, but let's just say one poor soul could have used some sunscreen as 17 heat lamps do their worst at close range.
It was ugly.
But "yuck" factor aside, the film's cat-and-mouse plot is routine and formulaic, including one FBI raid scene that is directly lifted from "Silence of the Lambs".
And the tense moments in the film are too few and far between.
Maybe it's because the killer is revealed within the first 40 minutes of the picture, so the "whodunnit" factor is taken away very early. (The audience finds out why he or she dunnit later in the film in a 45-second montage explained by the FBI with all the payoff of opening socks on Christmas morning.)
Maybe it's because we don't learn much about Marsh other than that she lives with her nice mom and pleasant daughter who wish she didn't work such long hours at the FBI.
Or maybe it's because "Untraceable" is a simple "cookie-cutter" thriller with some fancy computer lingo and a jacked-up gross-out factor.
I wonder if Hollywood will, someday, pull together another classic computer-programming thriller.
"WarGames II," perhaps?
I may have to wait awhile.
Until then, I'll simply continue to appreciate the technology today's programmers provide.
I wonder if Grandma saw any snow yesterday.
Reach the reporter at jeffrey.mitchell@asu.edu.
