WHITEOUT UK DVD review

Whiteout doesn't trust its audience. Of course this is nothing new for Hollywood - sometimes it's even a necessary tactic to nudge the viewers awake rather than risk them tuning out. Whiteout's greatest weakness, though, is how obvious it makes it (right from the start) that the scriptwriters plainly feel if at any point they ease off on the flash, or the gimmicks or the cheap emotional manipulation anyone still watching will simply cease to care.

Which is a warning sign, because the basic premise ought to be enough to hook more than a few. Adapted from the first of two Whiteout graphic novels by Greg Rucka, the film is set in the Antarctic, where Marshall Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale, Underworld, Underworld: Evolution) has the unenviable job of policing the loneliest place on earth. The discovery of a body out on the ice - the first ever murder at the South Pole - is an indication things are not as they seem, and soon enough Stetko is racing to uncover a mysterious conspiracy of silence over something buried under the pole, where its one-time members are dropping like flies.

Only it isn't mysterious in the slightest, because director Dominic Sena (Swordfish, Gone in 60 Seconds) and his scriptwriters are at pains to all but spell out precisely what everyone's carving each other up with ice picks for. Character development or any real sense of place get smoothed over or sidelined in favour of constant reminders this is exciting, goddamnit, from the superfluous opening flashback to the mawkish sentimentality to the action sequences turned up to eleven all the time.

Speaking of which, the narrative shortcomings could be overlooked if Sena didn't prove barely competent on a purely visual level. Beyond the clumsy framing Whiteout is simply not a pretty film; DP Christopher Soos shoots the Canadian locations with a rosy pink tinge that was presumably intended to accentuate the setting sun but gives most of the exterior shots the shiny feel of a cheap back-projection. The constant gloss is horribly distracting, like some forgotten DTV release from the mid-90s where there's never any real sense of immersion.

Yet on top of this Sena even fumbles the few good ideas he's been handed; he keeps one gruesome injury from the graphic novel, but lessens the impact by pouring on the treacle. He switches one key supporting character's gender, deflating his heroine's independence with a poorly judged little-girl-lost routine. He overcomplicates her psychological baggage while making those flashbacks look even uglier than anything in the rest of the film, and though moving the titular storm to the end of the film initially seems as if it could make for a gripping climax he fails to capitalise on this, too, dragging the scene out for far too long and finally deflating it with a laughable dose of Hollywood physics.

The director doesn't deserve all the blame; Beckinsale is a capable actress but she's terribly miscast. The first two Underworld movies played to her ice-queen persona, and her costume drama roles catered to her English rose looks, but she's out of her depth as a hardass, embittered officer of the law and the cursory script does her no favours. Gabriel Macht barely registers as the male lead - lambasted for his wooden performance in The Spirit, he's hardly any better here.

The only one to make anything of his role is Tom Skerrit, giving his lonely, hard-drinking doctor a level of gravitas and pathos the film barely deserves, the veteran character actor channelling John Carpenter's The Thing for all he's worth.

Whiteout is far from terrible, but it's painfully mediocre. It wastes the original premise, it wastes the graphic novel's seedy film noir trappings, it fails to conjure up even the barest hint of any kind of genuine suspense or human drama and even ignoring the mess it makes of the source material it simply doesn't offer up any compelling reason why it should have been made. The under-rated South Korean thriller Antarctic Journal is a desperately flawed film but still comfortably eclipses this on every level, and John Carpenter's The Thing (which is more than twenty years old, remember) simply beats it hollow. From the air of will-this-do hanging over the visuals to the feeble dialogue to John Frizzell's anodyne score, Whiteout never once comes alive.

For anyone interested in purchasing the film regardless, Optimum Home Entertainment's UK DVD (available to buy from 25^th January) is a serviceable, if unexceptional release. It's not demo material - the picture seems fairly soft, without too much detail in the darker areas - but it shows the film off reasonably well, perhaps better than it needed given the limitations of the cinematography. The basic stereo track (Dolby 5.1 is also included) is perhaps a little quiet, but crisp, and the dialogue comes through clearly enough. English subtitles are clear and legible, though they only come with the main feature and miss the odd word here and there to fit. Menus are minimalist, but perfectly legible and can be navigated quickly enough.

Extras are sparse; first is Whiteout: the Coldest Thriller Ever, twelve minutes of EPK backslapping which unfortunately undermines the film even further given the Canadian scenery looks far better in a promotional puff-piece than it does in the actual film. Whiteout: From Page to Screen is another twelve minutes impressing on us how close to the graphic novel the film comes - Rucka and artist Steve Lieber prove voluble and engaging with both men seemingly happy enough with the finished movie, though again, whether they're genuinely excited or merely collecting a paycheque Dominic Sena's work undercuts most of what they're saying. The creators' description of the genesis of the graphic novel is far more thrilling than anything the director puts on screen.

There are four minutes of deleted scenes, one of them mostly notable for a brief cameo from Rucka himself, another at the Russian base shot in daylight that - again - looks conspicuously more striking than the main feature. All are obvious cuts for pacing. The two-minute theatrical trailer is the last thing on the DVD, misrepresenting the film to an almost comical degree (Hammering score! Ominous voiceover! Flash-cutting! Constant fist-fights! Kate Beckinsale in the shower!).

Greeted with a very unkind critical reception on its earlier theatrical release, sadly Whiteout proves to be largely just as forgettable as that would imply. For anyone who just can't get enough of intrigue and double-dealing set amongst the polar icecaps it should make for undemanding viewing, and Optimum's DVD gives it a decent, if unremarkable presentation. Set against the alternatives, though, the film itself is very difficult to recommend.

(Thanks go to Optimum Home Entertainment for facilitating this DVD review.)