Review: Whiteout is a washout!

Film: Whiteout (A)
Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Gabriel Mach, Tom Skeritt, Columbus Short
Director: Dominic Sena
Rating: **

The gorgeous Kate Beckinsale, fresh from her action star success in Underworld takes on the role of Carrie Stetko, the lone US Marshal assigned to Antarctica who investigates the continent's first murder, drawing her into a shocking whodunit. With only three days until winter, Carrie must solve the crime before Antarctica is plunged into darkness and she is stranded with the killer.

The film is based on Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber’s graphic novel originally published in 2001. The scripted version though, changes a few of the characters and plot points from the novel, leaving out one of the main ones – Blonde British agent Lily Sharpe who partnered Carrie in the investigations. The screenplay by Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber, Chad Hayes and Carey W Hayes is short on thrills, and the action is arranged in typical fashion.

It all starts off well indeed – a Russian plane carrying secret cargo crashes into the snowy surface. Then flash forward to the American base where Stetko is busy in the process of keeping her territory safe. Beckinsale's look leaves a lot of room for doubts about how improbable such a spectacularly slim specimen of womanhood could survive the harsh unrelieved hardships of life in the frozen wilderness. That is the start point for the excruciating implausibility that follows.

The characters never develop beyond the perfunctory, and most of the plot points fail to match up into a convincing whole. The red herrings are on expected lines and the plotting is quite predictable throughout. The principal action sequence also is a bit confusing, staged as it is in the near-zero visibility of a blizzard (a whiteout). There is very little clarity in that climatic sequence and as a result there’s just no juice to be had there. Save for the beautiful Antarctic landscape, there is not much else to be enjoyed here!