Synopsis:

A secret service agent, Jennifer Marsh (Diane Lane), gets caught in a very personal and deadly cat-and-mouse game with a serial killer who knows that people (being what they are - both curious and drawn to the dark side of things) will log onto an "untraceable" website where he conducts violent and painful murders LIVE on the net. The more people who log on and enter the website, the quicker and more violently the victim dies.

Brian's Rating: C- : This movie is built around a cool concept.  It is too bad that the movie did not seize the opportunity that was there.  The idea that a serial killer can make use of the internet to perpetrate is crimes is sort of cool.  The murders are cool, and they do actually pull off the suspense.

Here are the problems.  First, there is a not so veiled message in the movie about how net neutrality is dangerous.  I am a firm opponent of regulating the internet, and the fact that they shove this political message down our throat is sickening.  There is a clear association drawn between proponents of net neutrality unleashing untold dangers on our society.  What a crock.

Secondly, there are gaping plot holes in the script, and not just a few.  As a computer guy, I hate it when a script just glosses over a completely unbelievable event by just throwing a bunch of buzzwords at the audience.  The idea that a site like the one portrayed in the movie could not be shut down is ludicrous.  The only attempt to explain it is to smash together about 7 techie-speak words and hope the audience is clueless.  Heck, even a non-computer person has to question this explanation without even knowing why.  Other plot holes include: the inconsistency of the killer in choosing his victims, the inconsistency on the rate of death as measured by viewers, the terrible assumption that all the bandwidth is somehow readily available, the overlooked fact that a scrawny kid overpowered the first victim with seemingly no struggle (the others were accounted for with a tazer), sulfuric acid being stored in plastic jugs with no issues, the inability to capture the live-stream video to decipher the entire morse-code message, as well as a handful more.  I honestly stopped keeping track of it.

Another problem with the movie is that the bad guy is entirely uninteresting.  Sure, his methods are interesting, but otherwise he comes across as Doogie Hauser MD.  He does not inspire any since of freakishness, nor do his motives even seem believable.  You want to see a cool killer, then see "No Country for Old Men".  This one ranks near the bottom.

I do not completely fail the movie because the concept is cool, the murders are innovative, and the lead acting was not terrible.  It was OK to see, but nothing I would recommend. 

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