Whiteout

Featured Reviewer: Robert W. Butler

Starring: Kate Beckinsale ... Carrie Stetko

Gabriel Macht ... Robert Pryce

Tom Skerritt ... Dr. John Fury

Columbus Short ... Delfy

Alex O'Loughlin ... Russell Haden

Shawn Doyle ... Sam Murphy

Joel S. Keller ... Jack (as Joel Keller)

Jesse Todd ... Rubin

Arthur Holden ... McGuire

Erin Hickock ... Rhonda

Bashar Rahal ... Russian Pilot

Julian Cain ... Russian Co-pilot

Dennis Keiffer ... Russian Guard #1

Andrei Runtso ... Russian Guard #2

Roman Varshavsky ... Russian Guard #3

Synopsis: Antarctica, the coldest and most isolated place on earth. Temperatures drop to 120 below. Winds whip across the ice at over 100 miles an hour. Home to one of the deadliest forces in the world.

It's a place U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) won't miss. As the lone Law Enforcement Agent at the Amundsen, Scott Research Station, her tenure here has been not only harsh but uneventful. In three days, when the station powers down and the sun sets for the long winter, she'll be getting out; leaving Antarctica for good and turning in her badge for a new life.

But when a body is discovered in the no man's land on the open ice, Stetko is plunged into shocking mystery. Bizarrely battered and miles from camp, the dead man is Antarctica's first homicide victim and Stetko's first real challenge in a long time.

Her investigation soon involves U.N. Special Agent Robert Pryce (Gabriel Macht), sent to monitor her progress in this ungoverned territory. As the case takes a deadly twist and a 60-year-old secret is unearthed, Stetko herself becomes a target. Pryce could prove to be a powerful ally but only if solving the murder is what he's really after.

With only days before the last plane out, Stetko must race to unravel the mystery or risk being stranded on the ice as darkness and the killer closes in.

Review: by Robert W. Butler, McClatchy Newspapers - azcentral.com

Early in "Whiteout," a murder mystery set in a South Pole research station, a federal marshal played by Kate Beckinsale strips down and takes a shower.

Why? No particular reason. But enjoy it while you can, fellas. She'll spend the rest of the film in a parka.

That scene makes about as much sense as anything else in Dominic Sena's thriller.

Beckinsale plays Carrie Stetko, who requested this remote, easy assignment after a particularly ugly on-the-job incident. Her main duties involve riding herd on several dozen young scientists who behave like college freshmen during orientation week.

But after two years Carrie is ready to rejoin the real world. That is until a pilot reports seeing a corpse out on the ice.

The dead man, a geologist, has been murdered. The trail of clues leads Carrie to an abandoned Russian outpost - now occupied by a masked killer with an ice ax - and a Soviet transport plane that has been buried in the ice for 50 years (we saw it go down in the film's prologue).

Something important was aboard that plane. Something worth killing for.

Based on Greg Rucka's comic-book series, "Whiteout" is one of those mysteries in which every character is a potential murderer. These include a pilot (Columbus Short), an FBI agent (Gabriel Macht) who mysteriously pops up on the scene, the station's venerable old sawbones (Tom Skerritt) and a cocky Aussie researcher (Alex O'Loughlin) whom we first see running a naked race in57-below temperatures .

Oh, did I mention that the Antarctic winter is blowing in and that once trapped, Carrie and the few remaining inhabitants will be stuck there for six months?

The screenplay by Jon and ErichHoeber and Chad and Carey Hayes (too many cooks?) is confusing and leaps huge gaps in logic.

But an unsung crew of f/x guys does a heck of a job re-creating a screaming Antarctic blizzard. This is one bone-chilling movie. It got that right, at least.