WHITEOUT
In this
earnest but muddled Antarctic thriller, a masked man kills research scientists
who may have stumbled upon a valuable object hidden beneath the ice. Figuring
out the murderer’s identity falls to U.S. Marshall Carrie Stetko (Kate
Beckinsale), with help from the research station’s doctor (Tom Skerritt) and a
shady U.N. investigator (Gabriel Macht). Carrie is a good detective tortured by
memories of a Miami drug bust gone bad, and in a regrettable blunder, director
Dominic Sena (Kalifornia, Gone in 60 Seconds) and his four
credited screenwriters have chosen to stage that failed arrest in a series of
hokey flashbacks that always end with Sena cutting back to a zoned-out Carrie,
who literally shakes her head to clear away the bad vibes. One feels for
Beckinsale, a B-movie action queen badly in need of a comedy and a script that
doesn’t require, as this one does, that she strip down to her skivvies in the
opening scene. It could be said that Whiteout
is an honest attempt to set an old-fashioned whodunit in an exotic locale, but
the mystery at the film’s core is so hopelessly dull that one begins to long
for a third-act cameo by the Abominable Snowman. (Chuck Wilson)
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