* *

Diane Lane, Colin Hanks, Billy Burke, Mary Beth Hurt. Screenplay by Robert Fyvolent, Mark Brinker, Allison Burnett. Rated R. 104 minutes. Sony Pictures Releasing.

In the opening scene of No Country for Old Men, an aging Texas sheriff muses on a rising societal evil he cannot comprehend, and wishes to keep at a distance. The world is changing that film says, and looking at that evil up close is something even the best cop just may not want to do.

I was reminded of this sentiment in a lackluster new serial killer movie following the philosophy of not looking at evil, par for the course in Hollywood thrillers today. If a movie about a killer isn’t interested in exploring evil, then what are we left with but a handful of empty thrills?

Movie killers once killed because of their pathologies, which were fascinating to discover along with shrewd detectives. They were black holes committing crimes because they simply could not stop, driven by psychology more disturbing than the actual crimes. It made for great movie villains through the ages in pictures like M, Klute, Psycho, The Boston Strangler, Cruising, Peeping Tom, Halloween, Manhunter, The Silence of the Lambs and Seven.

These were films that got their jolts from the uncontrollable impulses of the disturbed psyche. Even last year’s excellent Mr. Brooks incorporated a fascinating killer character and his alter ego in a struggle to live a normal life, suggesting the macabre notion that the drive to kill may be genetic.

This is the stuff of real horror, today mostly excised from the modern killer film, which has been reduced to a hackneyed formula of elaborate traps set to bait detectives at the expense of credibility and thrills. Today’s movie killers aren’t driven by their neuroses; they are driven to cruelty when required by the red herrings of novice screenwriters. Which is about every fifteen minutes or so.

If nothing else, the silly new web cam thriller Untraceable, starring Diane Lane as an FBI Cyber Crimes specialist who discovers a serial killer streaming murder to a worldwide fan base, is a shining example of this high-concept, empty modern thriller. In a movie with shallow characters, ridiculous set-ups, empty pathology and the now shopworn symbiosis between hunter and hunted, Lane somehow manages to pull out a better performance than the film requires. She’s the one thing Untraceable has going for it, but she’s hijacked by a film long before its fledgling killer gets his hands on her. And if that was a spoiler for you, then you may just enjoy Untraceable more than I suspected.

The opening scenes have an engrossing punch to them, as special agent Jennifer Marsh (Lane) and sidekick Griffin (Colin Hanks) bring the heat down on an internet credit card scammer stealing financial data and identities. It’s fun to watch them quickly analyze the crime with super savvy command of their makeshift control room, using sophisticated, satellite tracking equipment to smoke out the perp. So far, so good. Widowed Marsh (late husband was a special agent gunned down in the line of duty, naturally) lives with her young daughter and mother (Mary Beth Hurt, wasted), giving her life to her work at the expense of birthday parties, locked and loaded and connected to her laptop 24/7.

She begins tracking a creepy new web site encouraging surfers to view live torture, which alarms her with its convincing authenticity. The killer’s modus operandi? The best email marketing campaign you’ve ever seen: escalating scenarios of barbarism that draw heavy web traffic across the globe. The more users that log on to the site, the more intense the torture becomes. It doesn’t take long for the site to becomes a frenzy of attention when it hits the news (!) and victims start turning up, allowing Lane to be shadowed by a handsome local detective on the scene (Billy Burke). Yet the killer eludes both the FBI and the police, changing his IP address by the minute, rendering himself untraceable. When revealed, the mystery is standard-issue axe-grinding.

I will say that he could have had a nice architectural career given the fanciful, Saw-like traps erected with an unending supply of materials and imagination. These torture scenarios include powerful heat lamps that literally fry a man alive, chemicals and water that yield acid in a tank as chunks of flesh cause another to disintegrate, while still another is hung upside down and lowered over a sharp, spinning blade. And he gets his practice in an early episode involving an electrocuted kitten.

When his identity is revealed at midpoint it generates no surprise or interest. His cards are out on the table, and the film has nowhere to go but down, which in this case is the inevitable face-to-face showdown with Marsh, an ugly scene with Lane that doesn’t thrill beyond her determination in the role.

Director Gregory Hoblit understands the genre quite well, with much better films like Fracture and Primal Fear under his belt. This one was obviously directed on an off day. It took three screenwriters to dream up this derivative, empty movie, and Untraceable is simply not scary. It is also not up to the talents of Diane Lane, who acts admirably as if she believes she’s onto something more than a movie killer with too much time on his hands, and too little of anything on his mind.

- Lee Shoquist