Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Whiteout

Released Year: 2009
Directed by Dominic Sena

Casted by:
Kate Beckinsale as Carrie Stetko
Gabriel Macht as Robert Pryce
Alex O'Loughlin as Russell Haden
Columbus Short as Delfy
Story:
The movie opens in 1957, inside a Russian cargo plane flying above Antarctica. In the cargo hold, three Russians sit with a padlocked box. The co-pilot launches a gun fight that soon leads to the plane crashing and the death of all aboard. The setting fast-forwards to a present-day geographical research settlement in Antarctica. The inhabitants are preparing to evacuate in the face of an early winter storm. They must depart before the onset of winter or remain for six months.

US Marshal Carrie Stetko has been working in remote Antarctica for two years, since a betrayal by her partner in Miami that killed him and nearly killed her. She is finally planning to leave, but first is called upon with her friend Doc and pilot Delfy to retrieve a body spotted in a remote area. A cursory autopsy first reveals only an old wound, stitched closed, but then discloses that the man was murdered with an axe.

The dead man is Anton Weiss, one of a group of three scientists looking for meteorites. When Carrie goes to speak to one of the others, she finds him dying from a neck wound and is herself attacked by a black-clad man with an axe. Carrie injures her hands in escaping, losing the wet skin of her fingers on the metal handle of a door. Later, she finds Robert Pryce, a UN security agent, examining the body of the second scientist. They conclude that the third, who is missing, must be the killer and set out to explore the group’s most recent research site. There, Carrie falls through the ice to find the old Russian cargo plane. Pryce and the pilot Delfy join her to investigate, and they realize that the locked box had been opened and six cylinders removed.

After nearly being trapped by a cave-in at the plane, Carrie must have her badly frostbitten fingers amputated by Doc. She then finds the missing scientist hiding in her office. He tells her that he and his two companions found the plane and took the canisters, but the killer has them now. Before Carrie can see him to safety, he is killed, but Carrie captures his killer, Russell Haden.

With Haden locked in the brig and the winter storm only moments away, Carrie and Pryce search for the canisters. Haden, however, escapes. The storm, a "whiteout", hits. Able to navigate through the blinding snow only by the system of security ropes, Pryce and Carrie pursue Haden. Just as Haden is about to kill Carrie, Pryce cuts Haden's rope, sending him to a cold death. At the base, Carrie and Pryce open the bag Haden had been carrying to find that the missing canisters contain only jelly beans.

Carrie has a colleague on the departed plane fax her a manifest of its cargo, so she can see if the original contents of the canisters are hidden there. There is nothing unexpected, but three items from the science center are missing: the bodies of the dead scientists. She searches their body bags and finds nothing, but, noticing that the stitching on Weiss's old wound matches the distinctive pattern on her amputated fingers, has a terrible inspiration. She explores the cavity of his body and finds several bags of large, uncut diamonds. She turns to find Doc in the doorway. Doc confesses that he was part of the diamond smuggling ring with the others before Haden killed the rest. He had hoped that the diamonds would give him a life worth leaving Antarctica for. When Doc tells her he wants to see the aurora australis one last time, she allows him to walk outside to his death.

Six months later, Carrie, Pryce and Delfy are among those who have wintered at the facility. Carrie transmits an e-mail to her director, rescinding her previous resignation and asking for a warmer station for her next duty station.
L² Scored: 3.5/10

L² Comment:
A movie based on the comic "Whiteout" by Greg Rucka & Steve Lieber, this movie has received enough points to get into the worst 100th films in history by the Rotten Tomatoes. For me, its a big YAWN YAWN !!! The reason i gave it a 3.5, its all because of Ms Beckinsale is in it... :S

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