Review: Whiteout (2009)

People in the Movie: Kate Beckinsale, Gabriel Macht, Tom Skerritt

Director: Dominic Sena

Pigeonhole: Thriller / Mystery / Comic Book

The Basics: U.S. Marshall Carrie Stetko (Beckinsale) finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation in the most unlikely of places – Antarctica.  Not only is the outside environment as deadly as the killer lurking the shadows, but Carrie is also fighting against the clock.  The research base that all the suspects and potential victims are located at is about to close for 6 months for the winter, and once off Antarctica, the killer will likely escape.

Recommendation:  Sena really made the Antarctic environment its own character (and rightfully so) with great visuals and tailoring the action when the actors were out “in it”.  Even watching this movie in the hot summer, your mind really believes how bitterly cold Antarctica would be.  On this idea alone, the movie is worth a viewing.  ‘R’ rating is for violence, language, some gory images, and very brief nudity.

My Take: The film was adapted from a small run comic book series of the same name.  The movie plays out like a typical cop drama, and the ending is somewhat predictable, but Sena kept the pace moving well enough not to get boring, plus there were enough believable scenarios to “keep you guessing” about several plot points until the end.  Alex O’Laughlin also has a small supporting role, so the film has some decent star power, as well.

**spoiler alert** The movie opens with the audience witnessing a Soviet military plane crash in 1957– a result of the crew killing each other over a crate on board the plane.  Fast forward 50 years to a US research base on Antarctica, where we see the ‘residents’ celebrating, as it is time to leave because winter is coming.  Carrie and her friend Doc (Skerritt) are talking about going back to the US, both with somewhat reserved anticipation.  Carrie is soon dispatched to check on a possible dead body, far off the base.  (Most of the travelling we notice appears to be done via small hopper-type planes and snow cats.)  The body is quickly identified as a US geologist and brought back to base where they realize this man was murdered – but not where they found his body.  Doc seems as if he going to let the incident go – meaning to not pursue the investigation any further- to insure he and Carrie are able to leave by the winter deadline flight out.  Carrie hesitantly agrees until she is contacted by one of the possible suspects at another research base.  She flies out to meet this person, finds him bleeding out from the throat, and is attacked by another masked man and subsequently injured.  A UN Investigator named Pryce (Macht) mysteriously appears at the research base after Carrie has regained consciousness, claiming he was dispatched there to aid in the murder investigation.  Carrie and Pryce, following some clues, discover the wrecked Soviet plane and realize something was taken out, and their two dead researchers were clearly  involved in whatever it is that is happening.  The two must now work fast to catch the suspect before he kills again or leaves with the missing cargo.

The rest of the movie plays out as a cat and mouse type crime thriller, with the unforgiving Antarctic environment playing into all the scenery and as its own dangerous character.  As the investigation proceeds we also see several flashbacks of why Carrie chose to take an isolated assignment like the one she now has in Antarctica.  Fighting injury, time, the cold, and trust issues, Carrie has to dig deep to solve the case and survive.       

As I am often fond of saying, I would like to have seen what hit the cutting room floor, because I feel a little more development of the characters, and a little more time building tension through the investigation, could have made this movie “that” much better.  As it stands, it is a tense little crime film, and while it’s not award winning by any means, it is certainly worth a rainy day afternoon viewing, mostly because it is nice to see a murder mystery take place somewhere other than New York or Los Angeles.  The ending, lacking the aforementioned development, seemed to be bit ho-hum to me, but as I noted above, at least it kept me guessing.

Final Thoughts/ Extras/ For Fun: Production of this movie completed in 2007, but did not release until 2009, which is never usually a good sign… The DVD did not really have any good extras, which was kind of a let-down…