Whiteout, the film based on the hit 1998 Greg Rucka/Steve Lieber comic book (that I never read more than one issue of) has finally hit DVD.  Theatrically, the film did not do well at all and the reviews are all pretty brutal with the words “predictable,” “disaster” and “pointless” being thrown about with regularity.  It should come as no surprise to anyone as the director, Dominic Sena, has been responsible for such Hollywood treats as Swordfish (2001) and Kalifornia (1993).  Luckily, I didn’t know that when I sat down to watch the film; all I knew was the comic was alright and the always lovely Kate Beckinsale was the star and, even though most of the vehicles she leads in are usually pretty bad, she’s worth watching so I tossed it in the other night just to see how it was.  The answer follows.

The film opens aboard a 1957 Russian aircraft and duplicity begins almost immediately as the pilots attempt to kill off some guards in the back of the plane, obviously because of some secret cargo they’re transporting, and the plane crashes in the arctic.  We then flash forward to a modern arctic research outpost where we meet U.S. Marshall Carrie Stetko (Beckinsale), a young woman who has exiled herself to the end of the world to attempt to come to grips with a partner’s betrayal (told through a series of pretty boring flashbacks).  We also are introduced to her buddy Doc (Tom Skerrit) and get a taste of what things are like in the frozen world they inhabit.  Both Doc and Carrie are due to be shipped home in three days but there is a call about a missing geologist, part of a three man team looking for meteorites.  As they investigate, they find the geologist in the middle of an ice shelf, miles from anywhere with no sign of how he got there; no tracks, no sled, nothing but a body in the middle of the ice.  Of course, Carrie must solve the crime before they ship home so she speeds off to the geologist’s camp to speak to the guy who called in the missing person’s report.  She arrives just in time to see the geologist get brutally murdered by a masked assailant and barely escapes with her life, losing two fingers to frostbite in the process.  When she comes to, Robert Pryce,  a shady CIA man (Gabriel Macht), is there with full knowledge of the event (hmmmm) as “someone” called him and offered to sell some canisters from an old Russian plane (hmmmmm).  It’s not too long before our intrepid heroes find that the geologists have been searching quite a distance from where known meteorites have been found and they had been using blasting caps to search in a grid pattern for something and thus the Russian aircraft is discovered.  Once inside, the heroes are trapped by the killer and must use some ingenuity to escape in order to get back to the base and find out where the canisters are hidden.  Too bad a huge storm is blowing in; a storm so big that the arctic research station is being evacuated in it’s entirety.  Carrie must, of course, do her best to solve the murder and find the canisters before everyone is dispersed to wherever they go and ensure justice is done.

That really sums it all up.  The film is a passable thriller that is not nearly as bad as the reviews would have you believe, but is not really good either.  Average would be the best word to describe it.  The story really blows it with sub plots and suspicions.  When Carrie flies to the geologist’s base her pilot (Columbus Short), ex-military and a pretty good sidekick, is with her but she leaves him in another building.  When she sees the geologist murdered by the masked killer, she attempts to escape in a pretty clever chase on lifeline tethers but the pilot is nowhere to be seen (hmmmm).  When she comes to, the pilot is there along with the mysterious CIA dude (hmmmmm).  Both were in the area during the attack but neither seen until the aftermath.  Here is some great misdirection in terms of suspects that was so clever the filmmakers totally ignore it, preferring to misdirect you with an Aussie pilot and other totally obvious suspects instead; so obvious in fact that they did it!  Any time you build a mystery by focusing on the actual criminals as “misdirection” instead of creating other suspicion, you have blown an opportunity.  There is some down-time in the middle as well that may be hard for an audience to overcome.  The film, I believe, could have been a bit longer as the actual mystery feels a bit compressed and with more room to move maybe some of these sub plots could have been utilized rather than glossed over or ignored completely.  As it stands, this movie is barely ahead of most of the standard Hollywood fare clogging theaters today.

So what’s good about it then?  I dug the setting immensely.  The arctic lends itself well to films of isolation and really assists the theme of hostility that runs through Whiteout.  Hostile climate, hostile people, hostile situations, this film gets that right from the start.  The bleakness of the surroundings, the dependence on the people around you regardless of personal interactions, the frightening power of mother nature, all these things work in favor of a murder mystery and the filmmakers utilize the setting very well to build what little suspense they feel like giving you.  Doc’s training of the new recruits outside with no jackets on is entertaining as he describes hypothermia and the effect of sub-zero temperature on the very obviously freezing men.  When discussing the Extreme Cold Weather gear they wear, they constantly refer to it as “ECW” gear, which cracked me up ever time i heard it.  After her fingers are cut off, Carrie slams some stuff around in her room and a copy of Them (1954) is clearly visible on the floor, which I loved.  Last, but not least (and this should be expected by anyone who has read my stuff), there is a gratuitous “Kate Beckinsale getting ready for the shower” scene that is totally unnecessary (unless you feel like me that if you have a beautiful woman the likes of Kate Beckinsale in your film you might as well get her to do a gratuitous shower scene) but very fun to watch.  Barring that, Kate Beckinsale is a very pretty young lady and the camera loves her so there are plenty of close-ups to ensure you know that she’s very pretty.  Plus, only Kate Beckinsale can make arctic bomber jackets and mufflers look good.

Whiteout, though a let-down on many levels, is not a terrible film, just a terribly average film.  Blown sub plots and under-utilization of supporting characters really derail what would ordinarily be a first-rate thriller but the setting and interesting moments throughout the film do elevate it to watchable status.  It would make a solid first film in an arctic trilogy with The Last Winter (2006) and The Thing (1982/1951) as long as it was viewed first.  I would recommend a rental in lieu of, say, She’s Out of My League (2010) but don’t put down something better just to get this.  Whiteout earns itself a 5.5 out of 10.