http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0880578/

Brutal, Painful Death, Just a Mouse Click Away

Paragraphs of technobabble spouted by Special Agent Jennifer Marsh (Diane Lane) of the F.B.I.’s cybercrime unit in Portland, Ore., explain why the Web site is untraceable. It takes a cyberwizard like Jennifer to catch a cyberwizard. Meanwhile the murders are carried out with different elaborate devices, each of which suggests a high-tech variation of something out of Edgar Allan Poe.

The killer’s cruel joke: The more people who visit the site, the faster the victims die. A counter records the accelerating number of hits as each new torture is unveiled. More than 27 million viewers rush to watch the spectacle of a woman strung upside down from the ceiling, as she is lowered inch by inch over rotating blades. Another victim is strapped inside a tank of water into which sulfuric acid is slowly dripped. Although his head and shoulders remain above water, the skin below peels away like wads of pink tissue paper as his eyes bug out and his face turns crimson.

The moral lesson: The act of watching makes us accessories to murder; without an audience, no one would die.

You may view “Untraceable,” as I do, as a repugnant example of the voyeurism it pretends to condemn. Or you may stand back and see it as a cleverly conceived, slickly executed genre movie that ranks somewhere between “Seven” and the “Saw” movies in sadistic ingenuity.

Gregory Hoblit, the director, was a producer and director on “L.A. Law” and “Hill Street Blues” in the 1980s and “NYPD Blue” in the 1990s. His best-known film, “Primal Fear,” made a star of Edward Norton in 1996. He has the clammy visual vocabulary and jittery rhythm of the crime-fighting movie down cold.

The killer’s spree begins with a grisly test run on a cat, in which he promises viewers to kill the animal once his site gets a certain number of hits. Jennifer, the smartest investigator in her unit, immediately intuits that this is just a prelude to something much worse.

The movie gives her a possible romantic interest in her fellow detective Eric (Billy Burke), who hovers protectively around her but keeps his hands off. She also has a nerdy younger partner, Griffin (Colin Hanks, Tom’s son), whose habit of making blind dates with women on the Internet leads him into the killer’s lair.

Jennifer is a stereotypically vulnerable target, a widowed single mother who lives in a dark, drafty house with her own mother, Stella (Mary Beth Hurt); her 8-year-old daughter, Annie (Perla Haney-Jardine); and a cat with a sixth sense. The place is begging to be invaded by a kidnapper, and the movie can’t resist toying with your fear that it is only a matter of time before either Jennifer or her daughter, or both, land in the killer’s gadget-clogged cellar.

Bringing her usual intensity to the role, Ms. Lane succeeds in making Jennifer a conflicted woman of some depth who is torn between her professional commitment and her family. The role of a high-strung thoroughbred with a streak of stubborn independence is one she has played before.

Lightness does not come easily to Ms. Lane. Even in her characters’ upbeat moments, you sense the shadows under the surface. The clench of her jaw, the taut tendons of her neck and her rigid posture evoke a loner bravely gritting her teeth as she gazes steadily into the darkness.

As cynical as it is, “Untraceable” leaves a sharp, lingering aftertaste. When the killer crows that it won’t be long before we are paying to download commercially sponsored atrocities on our cellphones, you have the uneasy feeling that he may be right.

“Untraceable” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has strong language and scenes of torture.

Directed by Gregory Hoblit; written by Robert Fyvolent, Mark R. Brinker and Allison Burnett, based on a story by Mr. Fyvolent and Mr. Brinker; director of photography, Anastas Michos; edited by David Rosenbloom; music by Christopher Young; production designer, Paul Eads; produced by Steven Pearl, Andy Cohen, Tom Rosenberg, Gary Lucchesi and Howard Koch Jr.; released by Screen Gems. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes.

WITH: Diane Lane (Jennifer Marsh), Billy Burke (Detective Eric Box), Colin Hanks (Griffin Dowd), Joseph Cross (Owen), Perla Haney-Jardine (Annie) and Mary Beth Hurt (Stella).

A Happy Housewife Does the Time Warp, and Madness Ensues

The movie seems to be headed in several possible directions. Is it a supernatural “Gaslight”? A Hitchockian psychological mystery like “Marnie” or “Vertigo”? An M. Night Shyamalan party trick with a jack-in-the-box ending? None of the above, it turns out.

The sloppy, absent-minded “Premonition” is a giant step backward for Ms. Bullock, who plays Linda Hanson, a woman with a perfect home, a perfect husband and two young daughters. Linda’s world suddenly crashes around her when the local sheriff knocks on the door and tells her that her husband, Jim (Julian McMahon), has died on a business trip when his car was hit by a truck.

Grief settles over the Hanson household. Linda gently breaks the news to her daughters, Bridgette (Courtney Taylor Burness) and Megan (Shyann McClure). And her mother, Joanne (Kate Nelligan), and best friend, Annie (Nia Long), rush to her side to flutter around offering solace.

But when Linda wakes up the next morning, she goes downstairs to find Jim contentedly sipping coffee and watching television. His death must have been a dream, she concludes. Soon after that she wakes to find the living room filled with anxious mourners. There is a spilled bottle of lithium in her bathroom sink. But the following morning she finds Jim in the shower. Is she losing her mind? After some tentative sleuthing, she decides that through a temporal mix-up, she has learned of Jim’s imminent death before it takes place.

The story brings in an ominous psychiatrist, Dr. Norman Roth (Peter Stormare), whom Linda has consulted but can’t remember; enigmatic answering-machine messages; and Jim’s blond co-worker Claire (Amber Valletta), who shows up at his burial and looks suspiciously like the Other Woman. There is some shady-seeming business involving Jim’s recently jiggered life insurance.

The movie veers toward horror, with Linda eventually dragged kicking and screaming to a mental hospital. Later, after we learn that the Hansons’ marriage has been in unspecified trouble for some time, the movie takes a turn toward the spiritual, with Linda consulting a priest who regales her with mumbo-jumbo about how her confusion stems from a lack of faith.

With a dozen loose strands still dangling at the two-thirds mark, “Premonition” abandons the psychiatric subplot to become a simple melodrama in which Linda, who has pieced together a timeline of past and future events, dashes to the scene of Jim’s accident to try to prevent it.

Ms. Bullock, who proved she could act in “Crash” and “Infamous,” returns to nonacting in “Premonition.” Embodying a paranoid but plucky Everywoman clutching at an elusive mate while trying to maintain her sanity, the best Ms. Bullock can manage is to seem glumly opaque.

Mr. McMahon, with his Mephistophelean eyebrows, dead eyes and slack mouth, walks the same line between Mr. Right and Mr. Wrong as his character, Dr. Christian Troy, does in the cable series “Nip/Tuck.” All he has to do to suggest sinister motives is to twist his features into a sour expression and address his wife in a blasé tone. Even in his Mr. Right mode, you’d be an idiot to trust him for a millisecond.

“Premonition” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has mild sexual situations and some strong language.

Courtesy:New york Times

The action's fast-paced, the actors fit their roles, and the 'don't trust the government' undertone is timely. Yet there's something off about Shooter that keeps it from being a real first-rate thriller. Plot holes and a couple of badly miscast supporting players hurt the film and unfortunately no amount of shooting or blowing things up can save Shooter from just missing its target.

• Mark Wahlberg's definitely believable as an ex-military sharpshooter with attitude
• It's nice to see the main female character's not a love interest
• The action sequences are gripping
• NRA enthusiasts may enjoy this film

Something Lethal Lurks in the Rustling Trees

The signal-to-noise ratio has become so lopsided when it comes to Mr. Shyamalan that “The Happening” was marked for failure even before it had a chance to fail — or succeed. Its worth as a cultural and aesthetic object had been rendered moot, never mind that it turns out to be a divertingly goofy thriller with an animistic bent, moments of shivery and twitchy suspense and a solid lead performance from Mark Wahlberg. Much like Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix in “Signs,” which this film resembles in mood, effectiveness and flaws, Mr. Wahlberg fits into the Shyamalan universe comfortably. He rides the spooky stuff with as much ease as he does the jokes, the manufactured sincerity and cornball messages.

I won’t say too much about the gimmick that Mr. Shyamalan has come up with this time around, only that it’s funny, dark and weird and involves some nasty payback from the natural world. The story opens on a bustlingly bright New York day with two women sharing a bench in Central Park. One hears something, the other doesn’t, and before you know it, one benchwarmer has slipped a hair stick out of her do and into her own neck. The blood continues to trickle, but soon runs into the streets as men and women across the city commit similarly inexplicable acts of self-annihilation, with bullets to the head or, in a queasy, presumably intentional visual echo of Sept. 11, plunges from on high.

This is the first R-rated feature from Mr. Shyamalan, who’s left the PG-13 world behind presumably to entice that much-coveted demographic, the young male bloodsucker. Going graphic has neither hurt nor harmed him, though from all the inventive ways he’s found to do away with characters, it’s hard not to wonder if he’s not extracting symbolic revenge on the fickle moviegoing public. Whatever the case, the opening’s body count works to his foundational purposes, creating an uneasy, unsettled atmosphere. Mr. Shyamalan’s words consistently fail him, as they have in the past. But working again with the cinematographer Tak Fujimoto (a longtime shooter for Jonathan Demme), he creates images — bodies falling, trees rustling — that at their most potent speak louder and more eloquently than those words.

As the suicides rage like the plague, Mr. Wahlberg’s Elliot, a Philadelphia high-school science teacher, heads out of town on a train with his wife, Alma (an oddly miscast, loony-looking Zooey Deschanel, working her big blue peepers like mad), and another teacher, Julian (John Leguizamo), who brings along his young daughter, Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez). The train conductors soon lose contact with the outside world, forcing passengers into the Pennsylvania backwoods. This allows Mr. Shyamalan to focus on his leads (and indulge in witless marital shtick); pick up a couple of crack scene stealers (Frank Collison and Betty Buckley); and frolic in the great outdoors with zippy cameras and special effects. Something wicked this way comes though, really, they’re already heeere.

Mr. Wahlberg’s earnest, committed presence anchors the story, giving it a sense of purpose (a reason to care). Unlike Ms. Deschanel, who looks mighty surprised to be in this movie or mighty alarmed, you hang on to Mr. Wahlberg, who smoothly navigates the broad, lurching comedy (notably a wonderfully eccentric and comic monologue) as well as the pockets of dread. Mr. Shyamalan’s bag of tricks is awfully familiar — the camera races forward, the characters stand locked in place, a child’s empty swing sways in the wind, eyes widen, mouths gape — but it’s time-tested and, with the right actors, effectual. There is, after all, real pleasure to be had from watching a magician pull even a mangy rabbit out of a battered top hat.

Mr. Shyamalan has come up with a doozy of a premise for “The Happening,” one that will appeal to the doomsday scenarist in every pessimist, so it’s a shame he doesn’t know what to do with it other than mow people down. One of his strengths, evident in his best film, “The Sixth Sense,” and even in misfires like “Lady in the Water,” is that he knows how to withhold enough information — goosing the quiet with well-timed boos and bangs — to keep you asking that crucial storytelling question: What happens next? But here, caught up in art-directing all this death, he forgets to set up the question from scene to scene. The movie unwinds like a series of ghastly tableaux vivants pasted together with sloppy domestic comedy.

By the time the story shifts to a town where people are hanging from trees in overly neat formation, the image of mass suicides has been drained of its shock, and a human calamity is revealed to be an aesthetic choice. Something is happening, all right, but Mr. Shyamalan, who certainly appears to enjoy playing God, doesn’t seem to care much. But what is happening, exactly? Is it the end of the world, a blip on the green screen, a Chernobyl rerun, Al Gore’s worst nightmare? Mr. Shyamalan tells us, more or less, letting the kitty out of the bag early. But here’s the thing about doomsday scenarios: They require an escape hatch or the weight of tragedy. Just knocking off the world because you’re mad at it isn’t enough.

“The Happening” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Bloody death.

THE HAPPENING

Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan; director of photography, Tak Fujimoto; edited by Conrad Buff; music by James Newton Howard; production designer, Jeannine Oppewall; produced by Mr. Shyamalan, Sam Mercer and Barry Mendel; released by 20th Century Fox. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes.

WITH: Mark Wahlberg (Elliot Moore), Zooey Deschanel (Alma Moore), John Leguizamo (Julian), Betty Buckley (Mrs. Jones), Frank Collison (Nursery Owner) and Ashlyn Sanchez (Jess).

When one sees Glenn Close portraying the vice-president, one begins to realize just how much she looks (and can act) like Gerald Ford.

Frankly, I was shocked to discover how much I liked Air Force One. Yes, it has villainous Russians who can never see our good guy President (Harrison Ford) when he's hiding right in front of them (much less shoot him). Yes, it has Secret Service guys who die at the hand of the enemy like flies in a bug zapper. Yes, it has the cheesiest special effects this side of of a Tom & Jerry cartoon. Yes, it features a rambling Gary Oldman in one of his clearly improvised looney-tune terrorist/psychopath roles. I could go on and on...

But I won't. Instead, I'll tell you that Air Force One (Die Hard on a plane with a President on it, thus distinguishing it from Die Hard 2, Passenger 57, and Executive Decision) is a spellbinding film, one that grips the viewer from the very start and doesn't let up until 140 minutes later, plot holes or no. It also may be the funniest movie I've seen all year -- and I still can't figure out if it was intentional or not!

And I don't care. Air Force One has great action, a good story, and once you get past the melodramatics of his co-stars, one of Harrison Ford's best performances, ever. In fact, I'd be so bold as to say that AFO is probably the best new film of 1997 to date.

An intricate and surprisingly moving guide to retaining ones own humanity while those around you lose theirs, The Shawshank Redemption is an actors dream. In the late 40s Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is a young and successful banker, content with life. Unfortunately the sky falls in when his wife and her golf pro lover are discovered riddled with bullets, barely hours after Andy learnt of her adultery. The final, crushing blow is that Andy actually drove up to the fateful house, loaded with whisky and bullets; a fact he readily admits to. Now, however, the stories related by Andy and the prosecuting DA diverge; according to the latter Andy took cold-blooded revenge, even pausing to reload his weapon. Faced with such a preponderance of evidence, Andy staggers from the courtroom under the load of two life sentences.

Inside Shawshank Prison, which hearsay calls the most brutal in New England, the inmates place bets. Spotting the lanky and out of place figure of Andy, Ellis "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman) reckons that he'll be the first to crack. With little fanfare the reasoning behind this prediction becomes clear; the sadistic and swaggering figures of Warden Norton (Bob Gunton) and head guard Capt. Hadley (Clancy Brown). Driven by the need to prove that they run the tightest, toughest jail within hundreds of miles, arbitrary abuse is frequent. Andy seems to cotton onto this fact pretty quickly, which is why he's not the one who breaks down in a paroxysm of regret; that honour is reserved for Fat Ass (Frank Medrano). Regrettably he doesn't live to learn from his mistake; Shawshank is hard like that.

Based upon a short story by Stephen King, The Shawshank Redemption is unlike any other adaptation of his work. Mercifully free of cheap horror and overwrought dialogue, this tale celebrates the resilience of the human spirit. Set over a period of many decades, the film takes its time in drawing together the strands of prison life. Each thread has a different life story encoded within it, yet together they form a single design; that prison solves nothing. In contrast it condemns ordinary, if misguided, folk to the tedium of abuse. Whatever individuality once existed is stripped from them. This is a simplification of course; the power of The Shawshank Redemption is that it sucks you into this particular world and exposes you to one possible tale. This single fibre concerns the seemingly naive figure of Andy, trapped within a world of pain and danger. Where lesser men might have crumbled in time, Andy is a man with hidden reserves.

In its heart The Shawshank Redemption is driven by the strength of its performances. Fortunately director Frank Darabont saw fit to hire a talented cast, rather than a bevy of high-profile names; a decision which lifts his creation from the merely ordinary. Robbins is thoroughly excellent as the clever and utterly decent Andy. While innocent and overly trusting, this is the key to the strength that sustains him; nothing can crush his optimism. Over and above these broad strokes Robbins also excels in the details, throwing in a faint smile or a leading comment when necessary. Equally impressive, perhaps even more so, Freeman is scintillating as the institutionalised Red, ground down by a wasted life. Near enough an organic constituent of the stone walls, Freeman gives his character a depth that hints at loss, regret, bitterness and hopelessness without once admitting to it. To the usually onerous task of narration Freeman brings a captivating balance, being informative without overwhelming the action. This is how we get to see inside Andy, a crucial window into his ability to cope.

Elsewhere The Shawshank Redemption shines by virtue of its compelling minor characters. From the very good to the very bad, almost every speaking part adds something to the backdrop behind Robbins and Freeman. In no particular order, veteran thespian James Whitmore gives elderly librarian Brooks Hatlen a rich, resonant lustre. Effortlessly indicating how prison can drain everything worth cherishing from an inmate, before tossing the empty husk into an uncertain world, Whitmore is memorable. Youngster Gil Bellows, as delinquent Tommy, is also fine, casting a crucial joker into Andy's disastrous hand. At the other and of the scale, both Gunton and Sadler are titanium hard and blood-vomit repellent. There is nothing but agony in their words and actions, a state far harder to achieve than to describe. Placed together these roles illuminate the prison, moving but never distracting the focus from Andy and Red's friendship.

There are, of course, weaknesses to The Shawshank Redemption. For a start the prisoners are too erudite and not nearly nasty or brutish enough, while the guards are overly stereotyped. In addition there is a bundle of minor loose ends, a result of trying to cover so much expository ground; the most obvious of these is how the cast hardly appear to age. This is, however, being fairly picky. On the positive side the film has a terrific and intelligent script, reasonable photography and performances of real emotion. Instead of insulting its audience, The Shawshank Redemption asks them to feel, think and identify. This is a rare accomplishment.

Dan Brown's controversial best-selling novel about a powerful secret that's been kept under wraps for thousands of years comes to the screen in this suspense thriller from director Ron Howard. The stately silence of Paris' Louvre museum is broken when one of the gallery's leading curators is found dead on the grounds, with strange symbols carved into his body and left around the spot where he died. Hoping to learn the significance of the symbols, police bring in Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), a gifted cryptographer who is also the victim's granddaughter. Needing help, Sophie calls on Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), a leading symbologist from the United States. As Sophie and Robert dig deeper into the case, they discover the victim's involvement in the Priory of Sion, a secret society whose members have been privy to forbidden knowledge dating back to the birth of Christianity. In their search, Sophie and Robert happen upon evidence that could lead to the final resting place of the Holy Grail, while members of the priory and an underground Catholic society known as Opus Dei give chase, determined to prevent them from sharing their greatest secrets with the world. Also starring Ian McKellen, Jean Reno, and Alfred Molina, The Da Vinci Code was shot on location in France and the United Kingdom; the Louvre allowed the producers to film at the famous museum, but scenes taking place at Westminster Abbey had to filmed elsewhere when church officials declined permission.

Year Released: 2001
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Ridley Scott
Writers: Steven Zaillian, Ken Nolan (based on the book by Mark Bowden)
Cast: Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, Eric Bana, William Fichtner, Ewan Bremner, Orlando Bloom, Sam Shepard.

In the heat of battle, everything breaks down. Ideologies and politics cease to matter. Whatever nebulous justifications for fighting are swept away as soon as the first bullets fly. The only thing left is pure, relentless Darwinism, devoid of any reasoning or argument: I have to kill that man, or else he is going to kill me. Black Hawk Down understands the cold truth of combat, and presents it with unshakable aplomb. It exists on a purely sensual level, eschewing traditional notions of drama and storytelling. Though it adheres to a bare-bones plot, its energy lies somewhere beyond. It isn't so much a yarn as an immersive experience, an attempt to convey the foot soldier's viewpoint in the most primal and immediate manner possible.

It's fitting that such a meditation would take place in the historic footnote of the Somali civil war: a conflict that ultimately involved both the U.S. Army and UN Peacekeepers. Sandwiched between Desert Storm and Bosnia -- a veritable hiccup in the New World Order -- it nonetheless placed thousands of soldiers in considerable jeopardy for murky and ill-defined goals. The all-but-forgotten operation thus becomes a cipher for war in general. Though the setting has a very fixed time and place, its essence transcends those boundaries. The fresh-faced young men on-screen could come from any country, and be a part of any conflict from the Peloponnesian War to the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

The film opens with a mob of starving Somalians charging a truck full of food, only to be fired upon by the armed thugs atop it. The food belongs to their warlord, the men say, and they'll kill anyone who tries to take it. A helicopter full of American soldiers circles the scene, its occupants itching to stop the brutality. No, their commanders inform them. The situation is not their concern.

In other hands, such a setup would lead the way for a gung-ho shoot 'em up: a jingoistic affirmation of American righteousness as Our Boys bash the appropriately foreign Forces of Evil. But Black Hawk Down has better things in mind, and knows that such simplistic reasoning just doesn't exist outside the multiplex. The soldiers in the chopper soon learn firsthand why such orders are given: the way even a minor skirmish can spiral out of control and how a desire to do the right thing may not make a damn bit of difference.

The bulk of the film involves a botched attempt to take several Somali war criminals into custody. A hundred-odd U.S. troops, traveling in choppers and Hum-Vees, surrounded a building in Mogadishu with the intention of capturing all those inside. The operation was supposed to take only 30 minutes; in the end, it lasted nearly a day and cost 19 American lives, along with God knows how many Somalis. Director Ridley Scott follows every part of the attack, but he isn't overly concerned about specific details. Instead, he keeps the proceedings abstract, concentrating on sights, sounds, and emotions. His ability to create complete cinematic universes finds a potent outlet here, in the wild streets and back alleys of Mogadishu. Under Scott's direction, the city becomes a forbidding, alien landscape where outsiders are not welcome. Mogadishu is a maze of roadblocks and tire fires, occupied by the resentful minions of the local warlord. Fights take place only a few blocks away from each other, yet they might as well be different planets. From the instant the soldiers hit the ground, we know they're in trouble. The American presence touches off a firestorm: thousands of militia members, armed to the teeth, take out their frustrations on anyone who steps into the crosshairs.

The characters are almost generic, with their shaved heads and mottled beige fatigues. Though we have an audience surrogate in Josh Hartnett's earnest sergeant, the film doesn't limit itself to his experience. It leaps back and forth between elements, following each aspect of the increasingly convoluted operation. Soon, one of the choppers goes down, followed by a second. The soldiers, who spent their time on base taking jump shots and debating the abstract reasons for their presence, find themselves cut off and surrounded by an enemy who desires their complete obliteration. Their efforts to survive highlights a lot of war film clichés -- bungled commands, the brotherhood of soldiers, an eager newbie who learns that combat really isn't cool after all -- but retain their core of truth in a way that other war films can't. Scott reaches into the heart of the incident and delivers it in wordless, gut-wrenching depth. At the same time, he deftly avoids political rationales, keeping right and wrong on the sidelines lest they interfere with the proceedings. The Americans' genuine morality is contrasted by their arrogant naïveté, their assumption that they can solve this crisis after so many others have failed. The Somalis are faceless, but never dehumanized, and we sense their agony as freshly as their rage. The result is a brilliant achievement, empathic and warm yet devoid of subjective judgement. There are no villains here, no faceless evils to be vanquished. Just an ugly situation and the way real people have to deal with it.

Black Hawk Down was co-produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, arguably Tinseltown's most exploitative hack. His knack for flashy, kinetic formalism finds an almost perfect expression here, transforming his cheap showmanship into something worthwhile. It allows us to momentarily forgive the countless cinematic abominations he has thrust upon us... and reminds us that Scott, one of our most underrated directors, remains a force to be reckoned with. Black Hawk Down is as good a film as he's ever made and one of the best pictures you're likely to see this year.