Whiteout is one of those movies that’ll make you say, “It took four screenwriters to come up with this?” Well actually, it didn’t. The original story of Whiteout is taken from the graphic novel written by Greg Rucka, but still the question lingers, it took four guys to glance at a series of pretty pictures and cobble together the prose it took to make this so-called thriller? Apparently it did, which is a shame because all that energy could have better been spent on something for substantive and emotionally satisfying. There is something neat to the basic premise of Whiteout, but in this instance, payoff’s a bitch.

But they always say, lead with your best asset, and the makers of Whiteout took this axiom to heart both literally and figuratively. It’s the only reason why I could think of that they’d introduce Kate Beckinsale’s U.S. Marshall Carrie Stetko in a scene where she’d methodically strips from her parka to her skivvies and has an exaggeratedly long and steamy shower. Not that I was complaining, but I could already smell blood in the water. For putting so much time, effort and energy in getting Kate into the shower right off the bat, you know that the filmmakers were trying to, ahem, compensate elsewhere. For short term titillation gains the filmmakers seem to forget that their film is set in Antarctica, and as anyone who showers in wintery times knows, you get in and you get out - fast.

If I dwell too long on remembrances of Kate Beckinsale in the shower, it’s because that scene is at once the most logical and most exciting that Whiteout gets. The Thing this is not and even as a middle of the road detective thriller it accomplishes nothing either. The set-up is good, a frozen body found in the middle of nowhere without gear. No base has reported a missing geologist and the corpse himself seems to have wondered away from his base, although there are no bases within (safe) walking distance. So who killed this guy and why? Why wasn’t he reported missing and what became of the rest of his team?

Plus, because a good mystery is never enough, we have to run against the ticking time clock scenario. There’s a weather front closing in that threatens to start the inescapable winter season a few days early. Stetko is scheduled to rotate out, along with wise, old, friendly doctor (Tom Skerritt) who’s both friend and father-figure. Stetko also suffers post-traumatic flashbacks of her last assignment pre-Antarctica where her partner was in cahoots with the drug lord they were tailing. So she has trust issues, which widdles down the suspect list rather starkly as this thing boils to a close. It’s thriller for dummies time, and just because The Day After Tomorrow was barely able to get away with a scene where our heroes are literally chased by a cold front, it doesn’t mean that it’ll work here as well.

Any film set in Antarctic is ripe for human drama because of the isolation, and isolation is usually a pretty solid factor at play in many of the best horror movies or thrillers. There’s nothing quite as awful as being alone with a killer amongst your group and not knowing who to trust. Whiteout is paint by numbers, it’s fill in the blank, it’s Mad Libs, and I wasn’t impressed. The film really doesn’t conjure any emotion and even the mystery element fails to entice, which is a good thing because the resolution is an example of ‘Say what?’ screenwriting. As in, when you hear the reason for the onscreen mayhem, it’ll make you exclaim, ‘Say what?’ Too bad, so sad, Whiteout is a strikeout.