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DVDfever.co.uk – Whiteout Blu-ray reviewDom Robinson reviews
Optimum Home EntertainmentBlu-ray: 
DVD:
- Cert:
- Running time: 101 minutes
- Year: 2009
- Cat no: OPTBD1275
- Released: January 2010
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 12 plus extras
- Picture: 1080p High Definition
- Sound: DTS 5.1 HD Master Audio
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English
- Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Super 35)
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: BD50
- Price: £24.99 (Blu-ray); £4.99 (DVD)
- Extras: “Whiteout: The Coldest Thriller Ever” featurette, “Whiteout: From Page to Screen” featurette, Deleted Scenes,Trailer
- Vote and comment on this film:View Comments
Director:
- Dominic Sena
(Gone in 60 Seconds, Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814, Kalifornia, Season of the Witch, Swordfish, Whiteout, TV: 13 Graves)
Producers:
- Susan Downey, David Gambino and Joel Silver
Screenplay:
- Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber, Chad Hayes and Carey Hayes
(based on the graphic novel by Greg Rucka & Steve Lieber)
Music:
- John Frizzell
Cast :
- Carrie Stetko: Kate Beckinsale
Robert Pryce: Gabriel Macht
“Doc” Dr John Fury: Tom Skerritt
Delfy: Columbus Short
Russell Haden: Alex O’Loughlin
Sam Murphy: Shawn Doyle
Jack: Joel Keller
Rubin: Jesse Todd
Mooney: Steve Lucescu
Weiss: Marc James Beauchamp
Whiteoutstarts in 1957, as two Russian pilots flying over the Northern Lights start a shoot-out on their own plane with other Russianmembers which leads to the plane crashing and everyone ending up brown bread. Zoom forward to Present Day, Antarcticaat the Amundsen-Scott Base, a US Scientific Research Facility where the temperature is a bit nippy at -55C. Carrie Stetko(Kate Beckinsale) comes in from the cold and strips off. She doesn’t look like she needs a shower, but takes oneanyway. Her appartment is surprisingly des-res as you’d presume they’d look more like something knocked up by JosefFritzl.
Anyway, the staff change over periodically but winter is coming in slightly early (in the Antarctic? Who knew?) and soshe’s on the first plane out of there along with “Doc” Dr John Fury (Tom Skerrit)… well, until they get windof a dead body out in the middle of nowhere. However, it’s not someone who’s been out there for 50 years, it’s oneof their own, but what was he doing out there? Either way, a storm is brewing up outside, planes are being scrambledand someone’s just referenced Top Gun.
Carrie gets a callout to meet with John Mooney, a colleague who worked with the dead guy, out at Vostock, so she goes…and finds Mooney at death’s door. worse still, the baddy’s waiting for her! But what’s it all about? It ain’tDie Hard 2 that’s for sure.
As we find out what Carrie thinks happened on the Russian plane, it starts to turn into an episode of Diagnosis Murder.The writing is predictable, especially when Carrie has her demons about her past and it’s made to loosely tie in withthe present.
A lot of this takes place during a whiteout and Doc describes one of those as an unholy set of weather conditionswhich converge and the world… falls away. Winds get up to over 100mph so you can’t see 6ft in front of your face.Hence, it’s basically game over if you’re stuck out there when it happens.
Whiteout is another case of a murderer on the loose and the good guys getting picked off one by one.I didn’t guess who the baddie was, as I always like to empty my mind before watching such a film and try not to secondguess them, but even when the revelation did come it wasn’t particular interesting.Dominic Sena did much better with Kalifornia.That said, he did later spoil it with the lacklustre Gone in 60 Seconds remake and Swordfish, of whichonly the opening scene stands out for me.
In short, Whietout is often as exciting as watching Tippex dry.
Presented in the original 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen ratio, for a lot of the time there’s no problems with the picturebut Blu-ray is all well and good when you can see what’s going on. However, as the baddie goes off during the whiteout,trying to kill people it gets ridiculously confusing when you can’t see what’s going on. Similarly, the picture qualityis fairly inconsequential at other times out in the snow blizzards, except for when there’s a clear abundance of CGI.The film was shot in Super 35 so will allow for a better 16:9 transfer when it makes it to TV (presuming it doesn’tend up on C4 where they actually show films properly now, so that would be a better bet), except for CGI scenes whichwill be cropped to 16:9.For the record, I’m watching on a Panasonic 37″ Plasma screen via a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player.
As for the sound, this this in DTS 5.1 HD Master Audio, or DTS 5.1 for those, like me, without the full technicaldohickey. It’s okay – snow blizzards and occasional gunshots, but nothing out of the ordinary.
The extras are as follows:
- “Whiteout: The Coldest Thriller Ever” featurette (12:02): As Kate begins, “Joel (Silver, producer) described it as the coldest thriller ever made… which doesn’t sound likea good sell, really.” – Interesting words.
The film wasn’t shot in the Antarctic, as that would be too risky, but instead in Manitoba and Québec, Canada. Thisfeaturette mixes in work-in-progress footage and clips from the film in anamorphic 2.35:1 with soundbites from variouscast and crew members. Nothing to write home about but Kate Beckinsale does look quite delish in this piece.
- “Whiteout: From Page to Screen” featurette (12:04): How it got from one to the other with graphic novelists Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber. There’s occasional input fromsome of those from the previous featurette.
- Deleted Scenes (4:11): 2 of them here, presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic, neither of which would need inserting back into the film.
- Trailer (2:02): Presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic and chops the film up so as to make it look a lot more interesting than it actually is.
The menu mixes a snow blizzard in with a short piece of music from the film playing over and over.There are English subtitles but the Chaptering is, again for Optimum, appalling with just 12 over the101-minute running time.
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.