Whiteout is a dismal murder mystery thriller. It looks like once the film was completed, it went through lots of post production editing to salvage something that could be released hence why Stuart Baird is listed as a supervising editor.

Kate Beckinsale plays a US Marshal at an international research base in Antarctica. When a body is found she needs to investigate a possible homicide before winter sets in and it gets dark for some months. We can guess that the murder is somehow linked to the initial scenes we saw of a Russian plane some years earlier that crash landed as it was being sabotaged by some of its crew.

Director Dominic Sena is out of his depth here. The film looks cheap with dodgy CGI snowstorms. The mystery is mediocre, things happen and it makes no sense. Even when the mystery is cleared up, we have another twist which is predictable.

WHITEOUT is a snowbound thriller that sees the unusually-cast Kate Beckinsale playing a US Marshal on the track of a killer who's left a frozen body in deepest Antarctica. The entire film is set in various blizzard-battered research stations and populated by the usual mix of scientists, doctors and pilots. The whole visual look and feel of the film is straightaway reminiscent of Carpenter's THE THING, but this movie is far from a classic to be mentioned in the same breath as that devastating sci-fi/horror combo.

Instead, it's a passable enough thriller, offering just the right mix of thrills, whodunit head-scratching, and character building. Beckinsale's character is rather thin to begin with, saddled with one of those all-too familiar back stories involving a traumatic event in her past, but she grows with the film and there's some good stuff involving survival in conditions hazardous to human health.

Much of the mystery's back story involves some conspiracy involving a downed Russian plane but it's all rather artificial and irrelevant, an obvious example of a Hitchcockian Macguffin and nothing much to get excited about. The ending is quietly satisfying instead of being action-packed, which I appreciated, and there's good support from a grizzled Tom Skerritt as the friendly doc. Just don't go in expecting a masterpiece, and you'll have a good time.

U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) is three days from leaving Antarctic research station Amundsen-Scott Base for the last time. There is a storm bearing down on them. She, Doc (Tom Skerritt),and pilot Delfy (Columbus Short) are sent to remote Haworth Mesa to check out a frozen body. They bring the body of Weiss back who is suppose to be looking for meteorites at Vostok Station. Then she goes out to Vostok to talk, but the person there is also killed and she is attacked. After regaining consciousness, she and Delfy find Robert Pryce (Gabriel Macht) of the United Nations Special Investigations Division. This is going to be an investigation of the first two murders in Anarctic.

There is a little bit of 'The Thing' feel about it. I'm a sucker for that movie. The big base is not the most compelling location. It doesn't take full advantage of the movie's biggest asset, the cold isolation. The Vostok station looks better to buildup drama. It would be a lot better if the movie takes place mostly at Vostok.

As a thriller, it doesn't always have good tension. The flashbacks to her Miami days drains most of drama away. The constant traveling back and forth to different places really confuses and lowers any possible buildup of suspense. Quite frankly, the reason for all this mayhem seems too convoluted, unrealistic, and generally disappointing. And the whiteout exterior battles are confusing. Basically everybody looks the same. Other than their voices, it is extremely difficult to distinguish one from another.