Kate Beckinsale in a parka and Cossack hat
WHITEOUT was okay, I don't get all the abuse piled on it. It's a type of thriller that has been done many times before (what hasn't?) the "enclosed scene" story where everyone is trapped on an island or out in the desert or on a train. And it's got the ticking time bomb urgency, only instead of an impending hurricane, it's the six-months long night closing in.
Kate plays a US Marshall investigating the first murder (that we know of, ha ha) in Antarctica. In three days, everyone has to clear out or stay stranded there for the next half year, so it gives her a compelling reason to get cracking. There's the usual array of suspects and clues and ghosts of her past (few movie crime-solves don't have some traumatic incident popping up in flashbacks). WHITEOUT has nothing new and fresh, but it does what it sets out to do. And there is one twist (only slightly related to the plot) that did surprise me.
What makes it interesting to me is the scenery (aside from Kate of course). I don't think I've seen any documentaries on South Pole research centers, and my impressions of what goes on there comes from the 1951 flick THE THING. So the setting fascinated me. And the sheer hostility of the climate adds a potent touch. The winds reached a hundred miles per hour, temperate a hundred and twenty below zero, visibility in a storm measured in inches... yikes. Human beings astound me because we are just determined to go where Nature never intended us to be and we find ways to survive and carry on. I have no doubt people will be walking around on Mars sooner or later.
