Los Angeles—It makes sense that Gregory Hoblit, who grew up the son of an FBI agent and started in show business as a producer and director on Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law, would make a movie about the federal bureau. If there is a surprise, it is that the film he has made, Untraceable, is not about traditional detective work. Instead, it focuses on Internet detectives in the bureau’s Portland office as they attempt to find a local killer who is using Web surfers to help him commit murder. He abducts people and then waits to see how many people tune in to his site. As the numbers increase, so does the torture, which leads to the eventual death of the victim. The movie, which stars Diane Lane and Colin Hanks as agents, opens in Vancouver on January 25.

In a Los Angeles hotel room, Hoblit says that the biggest difference between the work that his father did and that of the film’s detectives is that everything that the latter investigate could be considered a federal crime. “When my dad was in the FBI, he was working at the Oakland office, and they couldn’t get involved in local crime or anything that happened within the state. If people did something in Nevada and crossed over to California, it was a federal crime and he could go after him. He couldn’t get involved in a local murder. But these detectives can track down this particular killer because the Internet goes across state lines.”

Hoblit and the film’s producers hired E. J. Hilbert, a former FBI agent, to help them figure out how to keep the story based in reality without the movie’s being perceived as an instructional film for people considering committing Internet crimes. Hilbert says the bureau has made several advances in recent years in its efforts to fight cybercrime.

“If one of these sites pops up now, it can be taken down quickly,” he says. “You will get caught a lot quicker now than last year. The FBI detectives can track what you post on-line. Cybercrime doesn’t exist in a vacuum anymore. In addition, a lot of this information is now available to employers, so it could affect people’s lives.”

Hoblit says Hilbert’s point is one the film wants to get across to young people, including those in his own home. “I wouldn’t want to make just a thrill-ride movie,” he says. “I felt that this was a cautionary tale that says that anything you do on-line is subject to scrutiny. I can say to my 16-year-old daughter, ‘Please know that if you want to be a camp counsellor and it is discovered that you are doing something on-line that you shouldn’t be doing, you won’t get the job.’ I think it’s an important point.”