Whiteout (2009)

Written by: Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber, Chad Hayes, Carey Hayes, and Greg Rucka (graphic novel)
Directed by: Dominic Sena
Featuring: Kate Beckinsale, Gabriel Macht, Tom Skerritt, Columbus Short, Alex O'Loughlin
Review by: Karina Wilson

Whiteout the movie manages to obliterate all that was haunting and sinister about Whiteout the graphic novel, burying the narrative under a drift of bland performances, shortcut storytelling and cheap special effects. The original, edgy concept of 'Antarctica's first homicide' melts under Dominic Sena's over-obvious arclights, leaving nothing but a messy, somewhat tepid puddle. The Thing this ain't. Marketed as a fight for survival with supernatural elements ("You can see your last breath"), it turns out to be a disappointingly cozy detective story, a Miss Marple On Ice.

It's not the second unit's fault. There's a National Geographic awe of the majesty of this remote region, with spectacular sunsets, ice-bound mountain ranges, and endless snowy plains photographed in loving, aerial color. Antarctica's emptiness certainly has the power to haunt, and when the characters are represented as tiny figures in this vast landscape, we feel a genuine sense of their constant peril from the elements. Simply traversing the few yards between one building and the next can be a dance with death, and the most thrilling sequences occur as characters try to do just that, clipped to hawsers in the midst of a blizzard that could otherwise whirl them into the whiteout in a fatal instant.

Yet, from medium shots inwards, the movie-making manages to reassure us that this world is, at heart, safe. Unlike the skeleton staffing level of The Thing, the base is packed to the rafters with rambunctious, good-looking party-people, who are never more than twenty minutes away from throwing their next Hawaiian-themed kegger. And there's Kate – it seems nothing too bad can ever happen to a character played by Kate Beckinsale. She's too tiny, too pretty, too pale, too much of an imaginary creature to ever be in real danger. If she can tough it out without once suffering from chapped lips or wind burnt cheeks, how savage can this place really be? There's never a moment when we're scared of her, or for her.

As US Marshal Carrie Stetko she plods determinedly around the base in a rather demure parka, Little Brown Law Enforcement Hood. Orange-hued flashbacks reveal she's a cop with an unfortunate past, who's come to Antarctica for the simple life. She doesn't trust her professional judgment. When presented with a dead body, she gasps, and then turns over the really tough stuff (autopsy, collection of evidence, questioning of witnesses) to the big men who surround her. When she so much as walks down a corridor she appears tiny and vulnerable, and very much in need of help from the menfolk. She can't manage to outrun an ice-axe wielding slasher without losing a couple of fingers to frostbite. And it takes her a painfully long time to figure out what's really going on.

Any credibility Beckinsale might have had as a US Marshal is destroyed a few minutes into the movie, when she strips to her tighty-whiteys and bends over - pert, symmetrical buttocks filling the screen - to fiddle with something in the shower. It's PG-13 porn, completely unnecessary for the understanding of her character, and establishes an unpleasantly patronizing tone from the top. This single shot reduces Carrie Stetko to an object, and an object she remains for the rest of the narrative, going with the flow of events rather than actively attempting to solve the mystery: Miss Marple would be embarrassed. There's no hint of her thought processes, no suggestion that she is putting together the pieces against the odds: any doe-eyed supermodel could have done the job. She meets being trapped underneath the ice in a fifty year-old, possibly radioactive, Soviet plane, and having two of her fingers amputated with the same perfectly eyebrowed equanimity. A real woman would have her skin ripped red raw by the winds, have a permanent stream of snot dripping from her nose, and bear the ravages of a six month tour of duty on an ice station sans beautician. The elements have the same effect on Beckinsale as they would on a Real Doll.

In comparison, the supporting cast seems sparky and overwhelmingly alive. Tom Skerritt puts in a masterful turn as Dr John Fury, all grizzled experience, chuckling into his beard as he makes new recruits stand outside without their coats on and counts down the – hopefully hypothetical – seconds to their death from hypothermia. Alex O'Louglin plays the rogue Aussie, Haden, with a sleazy twinkle in his eye, suggesting a Puckish energy that finds its own kind of lawless release in the Antarctic wastelands. Columbus Short brings a dignified sense of humor to Delfy, the pilot who swaps the Iraqi desert for this one. His wonder at his surroundings feels genuine, warm and human in his otherwise-frozen environs. He makes us understand why people give up months, years of their lives to live at the end of the earth.

Antarctica itself is appealing, raw and remote, as close to another world as we ever get on this one. However, Whiteout squanders the setting on a pedestrian, superficial thriller, and ultimately offers nothing more than 96 minutes of numb relief from the late summer heat.

Rating: (2 out of 5):