Kate Beckinsale Movie:

				Label: Warner Bros. Salesrank:
		MPAA Rating: Media: Theatrical Release

Editorial Review:
Baby, it's cold outside: that's the problem for U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale), the only law-enforcement officer assigned to Antarctica. On the verge of shipping out before the really bad weather hits, Carrie is confronted with a mysterious murder that sounds like a riddle: how'd a lone corpse find its way to the middle of an ice field, as though dropped from a great height? And what's this have to do with the prologue about a Soviet fighter jet crashing some decades earlier? Whiteout, based on the graphic novel by Greg Rucka, solves these questions in a brisk if mostly preposterous manner, and it moves swiftly enough so you don't have to spend too much time on the plausibility of it all. Among the other snowbound stragglers are a U.N. investigator (Gabriel Macht, of The Spirit), some cocky pilots (Alex O'Laughlin, Columbus Short), and a grizzled doctor (Tom Skerritt). If the presence of Skerritt conjures up memories of Alien, with its ten-little-Indians structure and female warrior, hold on--Whiteout doesn't actually have a supernatural twist to it, and Beckinsale is no Sigourney Weaver. But director Dominic Sena (undistinguished by his cheesy film Swordfish) puts the screws to the material in a relentless way, and the vast exteriors (shot in Canada) are impressive. And when it comes to one particular wow-you're-really-going-there instance of potential amputation for a main character, the film doesn't back down. In fact it sort of revels in the moment. --Robert Horton

Whiteout [Theatrical Release] Reviews:
An Antarctic Thriller That Should Be More Thrilling
2009-11-02 - If you like beautiful Kate Beckinsale, you may like her latest effort "Whiteout." But if you are looking for a great thriller (whatever your definition of "great" is), sorry, you don't find one here. I thought the film's premise about a dead body in Antarctica was promising and would offer at least something original. No, whoever wrote the screenplay (four writers are credited), they only came up with a plot that remains generic and below-average throughout, just like that of a badly-written straight-to-DVD thriller.

In the new Dark Castle/Warner thriller "Whiteout" Kate Beckinsale plays Carrie Stetko, a US marshal stationed at American Antarctic base. She has been here for the past two years, and the tired marshal is about to leave the outpost for good when a dead body is found at the most remote site of the continent. This could be the first-ever homicide case in Antarctica, and Carrie is immediately sent to the scene, where she and Robert Pryce (Gabriel Macht), an operative from UN, discover something unusual deep in the ice.

Actually, it is nothing unusual or surprising for those who have seen the film from the beginning. Despite occasional actions and flashbacks that suggest Carries' traumatic past, "Whiteout" remains very dull. The film's cliché-ridden story moves at a snail's pace and works neither as thriller nor as drama. Columbus Short and Tom Skerritt appear as pilot and doctor respectively, but except one lengthy operation scene, they (and other supports) are just ciphers. Perhaps to say "ciphers" is not enough because during the "action" scenes, with heavy blizzard and thick overcoats, we often cannot tell who is chasing who, or simply what is going on.

Sometimes it seems the director (Dominic Sena, "Swordfish") is not really interested in the thriller he is supposed to tell. Things often happen and end abruptly. No attempt is made to build up the tension and even the Canadian location (the film was shot in Manitoba and Quebec) doesn't look attractive enough. And as to the star Kate Beckinsale, yes, she does her best, but the fact only makes me feel that her efforts surely deserve far better.

Kate is lovely... Antarctica is lovely... and that's about it...
2009-10-29 - I've been hearing about this movie for many years. It's an adaptation of a little known graphic novel and it was in pre-production for almost a decade. Reese Witherspoon was initially attached to this project. Reese as a federal agent is an even more ridiculous thought than Kate Beckinsale in the finished product. The buzz for this film turned bitter and hopeless as it was postponed again and again. Finally seeing the film, you get exactly what you expect. An interesting premise of a lone law enforcement officer stuck on the most remote continent on the planet having to capture a killer who has just committed the first murder in the history of Antarctica. Solid premise leads to lame results. First off we do not need any of these flashbacks to flesh out Kate's character and her past in Miami. Totally irrelevant to waste time on this. Second of all there are no compelling villains here, there is basically just a bare bones plot about capturing some killer lurking amidst the snow and ice. There is nothing supernatural or extraterrestial here either, so forget about that.

Some of the photography is lovely, especially the shots that don't rely too heavily on computer generated imagery to stress the fakery of this whole enterprise. Kate does an admirable job with the limited material. The shower scene was totally gratuitous. The best thing about making a movie set in Antarctica and starring an attractive woman is the perverse pleasure a director can take in having the female lead walk around in heavy coats and sweaters, never showing any skin much to the chagrin of teenage boys. Unfortunately this director just couldn't resist one short shower scene. You don't even see anything, it's merely an acknowledgement of hey, there's a woman in this movie, let's shamelessly give her a shower scene.

I enjoyed Tom Skeritt's presence in the film as he gives it more dignity than it deserves. There is one really good scene between him and Kate. I won't spoil it for you but there's real emotion in it. It involves some frostbite and a medical procedure.

Well, too bad. Another film with a cool premise, great setting, a good female lead and some solid photography passes through the Hollywood junk machine and comes out as a disposable product. Filmgoers passed on this and with good reason. "Whiteout" will find some kind of small audience as a DVD rental or on late night television in the future.

A murder mystery
2009-10-19 - "Whiteout", which is directed by Dominic Sena (Swordfish), stars Kate Beckinsale, who is a U.S. deputy marshal (Carrie Stetko) based in an Antarctica at the South Pole. She is on her last three days of her duties at the station when a murder takes place, the first in Antarctica's history. It turns out that this murder is linked to the crash of a Russian aircraft, some sixty years earlier. A UN operative, Stetko (Gabriel Macht), has also been assigned to the case. Living among them, or at one of the other South Pole bases, is a killer, who is systematically killing people off one by one.

The film has many dramatic sequences, though I sometimes felt like these sequences were not as fleshed out, or as believable, as they could have been. When Carrie is first escaping the killer in the blizzard it seems odd that she is always linking herself to each section of the rope between the buildings when she is so desperately trying to escape the killer. Wouldn't she have just tried to make a desperate run for it by holding onto the rope? And when the characters are trapped in the plane, after the hole caves in with snow, we could have perhaps had a more dramatic scene of survival with them trying to dig their way out, but instead, somewhat unbelievably, they manage to blow out the door in the ceiling of the plane and escape. It seems a bit too convenient and easy of a solution, and one wonders why the writers had them trapped in the first place if it never really amounts to anything. A whole film could have been based on them trapped in the plane with perhaps the murderer right there with them, but instead we get this somewhat meaningless interlude that doesn't amount to much. Towards the end of the film Carrie discovers that the doctor (Tom Skerritt) is involved in the stealing of the plane's cargo, but instead of putting up a fight he lamely walks out into the blizzard, apparently full of guilt. Still, despite, some of these apparent weaknesses with the film there is enough drama, mystery, and charismatic characters, to entertain us and carry us through to the end.

Murder in a Very Cold Place...
2009-09-20 - "Whiteout" is an implausible but servicable thriller set at the South Pole. In its opening sequence, set in 1957, a Soviet cargo plane carrying a mysterious cargo goes down somewhere in Antarctica. In the present, the Amundsen-Scott Scientific Station at the South Pole is preparing to rotate out its summer crew and batten down for the winter darkness, just ahead of an approaching storm. US Marshal Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) is preparing to depart, along with her doctor friend (a grizzled but amiable Tom Skerrit).

The discovery of a body on the ice triggers an investigation that leads in short order to an old Soviet scientific station, another dead body, a killer, and the Soviet cargo plane, minus its mysterious cargo. Stetko is assisted in her investigation by the doctor, an aircraft pilot (Columbus Short) and a UN Security Officer (Gabriel Macht). The group, almost inevitably, becomes trapped in an evacuated station with the killer or killers.

Stetko, traumatized by betrayal in a previous assignment told in flashback, finds she can't trust anyone in her present. The action sequences inside and outside the station work well, moving the audience quickly past some plot holes and cold weather implausibilities to a twisty ending. "Whiteout" isn't going to win any awards, but manages to be moderately entertaining. Canada does stand in for the Antarctic with some stunning exteriors.

Better Than I Expected!!!
2009-09-16 - I thought this was a pretty good movie! At times it seems like an action film, then switches to suspense, and then it goes to a type of slasher film! Everybody does an awesome job, especially the beautiful Kate Beckinsale who stars as a U.S. deputy marshal named Carrie Stetko who is assigned to solve a murder in Antarctica within three days before the antarctic winter begins. I loved all the beautiful scenery that took place at night, and the big snowstorm. Carrie and her crew soon find a Russian plane that has been hidden in the snow for 50 years, which holds something worth killing for. Carrie must deal with more than one killer and she is betrayed by one of her friends. I highly recommend WHITEOUT!!!