Based on the graphic novel written by Greg Rucka, Whiteout does feel a bit simplified from its source material and isn't anything close to resembling the almost slasher movie tone of its trailer but still manages to be an entertaining effort that uses it bleak Arctic setting rather effectively at times and gets a solid performance by Kate Beckinsale despite having a few issues with the script's logic and some scattered suspense moments that should have worked better than they do.

Beckinsale plays U.S. Marshall Carrie Stetko who's taken a post at a remote base in Antarctica to try and escape her lingering trauma from a previous case where she had captured a notorious serial killer only for him to escape, murder her partner, and batter her close to the point of death. Carrie's removed herself from society by getting stationed there having to deal with boring, non-important, cases and just as she's about to return back home they find a body out in the middle of the icy wasteland. After examining the corpse, Carrie concludes it was a murder and is forced to try and solve the case within the next 48 hours before a storm rolls in and traps her there until the Summer.

Using various clues and passenger manifests to try and track down the killer, Carrie visits a nearby Russian base and is chased through a -65 degrees storm by an ice axe wielding stranger in the film's most effective suspense moment thanks to a desperate struggle to get out of the cold that ends with the skin on Carrie's hand fusing with the metal door handle and peeling away - it's a moment that made me cringe, just a little.

Along the way she also meets up with U.N. investigator Robert Pryce (Gabriel Macht) who is basically on hand to be a red herring as well as give the audience some form of male hero to root for. Which almost felt, to me anyway, that the makers weren't that confident in Beckinsale to carry the film. We also get a few more attempts at thrills when they're caught in the snow in an abandoned plane that crashed there in 1957, they pepper in a handful of flashbacks to Carrie's past that feel misplaced at best, we learn the reason behind everything, and we're treated to an action-filled finale set in the middle of an intense blizzard that just doesn't feel that exciting.

As far as this type of thriller goes Whiteout does a competent job during its 101-minute run time. It does suffer from a script that tosses out a few too many thin plot points and is loaded with weak, obvious and descriptive dialogue (this is most evident during the aforementioned buried plane sequence) and probably could've benefited from director Dominic Sena ramping up the action a tiny bit more than he does. Going into this I wasn't quite sure how they would bring the visceral flow of Rucka's comic series, and I was also a bit wary due to the poor marketing thrown out there by Sony, but this proved to be a decent distraction albeit its discernible flaws.

Beckinsale, who by this point could pretty much star in any turkey of a flick and get fan boy attention if she dons tight leather outfits, doesn't bring the toughness of Rucka's Carrie but still handles everything fine. I was a bit iffy on Macht at first but really didn't mind his character by the time things were over. It's just too bad they couldn't have done a bit more with veteran actor Tom Skerritt (Alien, Big Bad Mama).

Sena started off in music videos and has made such low I.Q. flicks as Swordfish and Gone in Sixty Seconds with his only attempt at the serial killer genre being the (in my eyes) overrated 1993 effort, Kalifornia. He handles things all right here but Whiteout just isn't that memorable a time. I enjoyed it while it was on, it did a good job keeping my attention, but I'll be damned if I'll remember that much about it a few months down the road. (Chris Hartley, 8/25/10)

Directed By: Dominic Sena.
Written By: Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber, Chad Hayes, Carey W. Hayes.

Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Gabriel Macht, Columbus Short, Alex O'Loughlin.