Based on the graphic novel by Greg Rucka with art by Steve Lieber, Whiteout is an action/suspense film that takes place in the most barren and isolated landscape on Earth: Antarctica.
Whiteout the Movie
The story of Whiteout follows Carrie Stetko (played by Kate Beckinsale), a U.S. Marshal, who after working in Antarctica for two years, has turned in her resignation and is preparing to go home. But when a body is found three days before her planned departure, Carrie is swept up into a frightening murder investigation; Antarctica’s first.
As winter closes in, dangerous whiteout conditions, frayed nerves, and wavering loyalties, all conspire against her as Carrie stalks a killer willing to go to any lengths to protect a long buried secret. It’s a race against time as the encroaching winter is about to plunge everyone into complete darkness.
Kate Beckinsale Stars in Whiteout
Kate Beckinsale is well versed in the action and suspense genre. With movies such as Underworld, Van Helsing, and Vacancy to her credit, this isn’t the first time she’s played a character in unusual and difficult circumstances. However, in an interview with moviesonline, Kate said that the filming of Whiteout was an entirely different experience from anything she’s ever done before. “There wasn't as much action as I'm used to,” she said. “There weren’t weapons and as much fighting. It was more just the conditions were really different, and especially the first few weeks we were actually in—it was like minus 58 where we were. Which, you know, I'm thinking, I did Van Helsing in Prague and that was cold, and I did Underworld in a latex suit, and it was just completely different from that.”
Dominic Sena Directs Whiteout
Filmed on location primarily in Manitoba, Canada, the cast and crew were up against frigid temperatures and isolated locales. In a press junket interview with IGN, director Dominic Sena described the frigid shoot as “brutal beyond belief.”
No stranger to action and suspense films, Dominic Sena has previously directed such films as Swordfish with John Travolta, Halle Berry, and Hugh Jackman, Gone in Sixty Seconds with Angelina Jolie and Nicholas Cage, and Kalifornia, starring Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis.
His attraction to this project was instant. "All these people caught up in this claustrophobic, frigid environment where you can't go outside... Two minutes outside and you're dead," he said. "And there's nothing to do down there (in Antarctica); you're bored silly. And all of a sudden there's a killer amongst you. And you go, 'S*%t, that's pretty good.' (Plus,) the cold and the whiteouts and the 120-mile an hour winds and all of that seem so alien and foreign that I thought, 'I love the idea to do it.' I mean, I didn't stop to think about how hard it would be to do!"
The premise is a good one, but whether or not audiences will respond favorably is yet to be determined. Despite being based on the award winning graphic novel, initial reports indicate that there are some definite differences, which is not unusual for an adapted work. As Kate Beckinsale said in an interview with Ben Barna “I think they wanted more of the essence of the graphic novel rather than doing it specifically.” How this will sit with fans of the novel remains to be seen.
Whiteout opens across theatres in North America on September 11, 2009.
- Whiteout
- Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Gabriel Macht, Tom Skerritt, Alex O’Loughlin
- Directed by Dominic Sena
- Running Time: 96 mins
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