Reviewed by Justin Bateman
Stars Kate Beckinsale, Gabriel Macht, Tom Skerritt, Columbus Short, Alex O'Loughlin, Shawn Doyle, Joel Keller, Jesse Todd, Steve Lucescu, Marc James Beauchamp
Written by Jon & Erich Hoeber, Chad & Carey W Hayes
Certification UK 15 | US R
Runtime 101 minutes
Directed by Dominic Sena
“Antarctica. The coldest, remotest location on Earth.” When a film begins with a caption like that I fear the worst. Not for the protagonists, for myself. We see a Russian cargo plane flying over the South Pole in the 1950s. It crashes spectacularly after the five-man crew kill each other in a shoot-out, apparently over the contents of a mysterious box on board.
Fast forward 50 years and we’re inside a US science base at the South Pole. We follow someone to their quarters. The camera lingers on a US marshal badge and we see Carrie Stetko (Beckinsale) taking off her coat. This scene is obviously some sort of crucial plot or character exposition, you may be forgiven for thinking. Then she takes off her sweater. Then, she strips down to her underwear. Hmm. She turns on the shower, steam rises. With her back to us Carrie removes her bra and suddenly we're back in the 1980s. It’s a non-nude gratuitous shower scene! So after 15 minutes, what have we learnt? That Kate Beckinsale is hot and the South Pole is cold? I think we already knew that. But then, a man is found murdered in the middle of nowhere and Stetko is called in to investigate. This is the first murder at the South Pole ever! Does it have something to do with that crashed plane, all those years ago? Yes!
Based on a graphic novel, Whiteout may have once been an intriguing, even gripping story. Somehow though, on the journey to the big screen, any originality there was has evaporated. Despite repeated flashbacks to Carrie’s past life as a cop in Miami in an attempt to build some sort of history, it’s hard to feel involved with her. Or anyone else. As it’s played as a whodunit, we’re given very little in the way of information and so director Sena has to resort to cheap shocks, a frantic soundtrack and shaky camerawork to get across the IMPENDING DANGER and MOUNTING TENSION. Then there’s the snow and wind. The eponymous weather conditions mean that in the climactic fight scene it’s virtually impossible to see who’s who, so it’s equally impossible to know who to root for, if indeed you still care.
Some of the views of the Antarctic are impressive and Whiteout has decent production values and performances. It’s not entirely unengaging but in the end it just feels like a TV cop show that happens to be based somewhere unusual. There are no real surprises, the dialogue is clunky at best and the characters are bereft of any emotional depth, leaving you feeling like you would after a few minutes at the South Pole: numb.