Whiteout (2009)(Warner Bros)

Source: Warner Bros

Nature never intended you to survive here.

For U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko, things are about to get even more dangerous. The only law enforcement in this unforgiving territory, she has just been sent to investigate a body on the ice. Antarctica's first homicide. A shocking discovery in itself, it will plunge her into an even more bizarre mystery and the revelation of secrets long-buried under the endless ice...secrets that someone believes are still worth killing for.

As Stetko races to find the killer before he finds her, winter is already closing in. In the deadly Antarctic whiteout, she won't see him till he's a breath away.

"Audiences won't immediately know what circumstances brought U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko to seek a post in Antarctica, or what she hoped to find there, but they will feel from the film's opening beats that she is anxious to get out," says Joel Silver, who produced "Whiteout" under the banner of his Dark Castle Entertainment, and calls it "the coldest thriller ever made."

Director Dominic Sena, marking his second collaboration with Silver following their 2001 action thriller "Swordfish," concurs. "Whatever she came looking for at the bottom of the world, she didn't find it. Meanwhile, the place has gotten to her, the cold, the claustrophobia, the isolation. She's at the breaking point and counting down to that last flight out before winter closes in with its six months of darkness."

Stetko's departure plans are put on hold when a body turns up in the ice field between the U.S. research station, the Amundsen-Scott, and its distant Russian counterpart, Vostok. It's a popsicle, in the wry jargon of a region where losing a glove can mean losing a hand and a few minutes' exposure can kill anyone caught outside without protection.

Frozen to the ground by blood and ice, his arms and legs strangely contorted, the body is that of an American geologist named Weiss, a member of a small research team studying meteorite fragments. Closer examination reveals numerous broken bones and a fresh gash in his leg that has been crudely stitched up, but the cause of death is a deep chest wound delivered by an instrument very common to this rough terrain: an ice ax.

As much as Weiss's death is a mystery, its location is even more baffling. Miles from nowhere. No tracks, no maps, no gear. What was he doing way out here? A murder victim is the last thing Stetko expected to find after two years of arduous but uneventful duty, and certainly the last thing she wants to deal with now. Nevertheless, passing him off to the nearest U.S. authorities at McMurdo Station 900 miles away is not an option.

Kate Beckinsale, who stars as Marshal Stetko, understands her position. "She realizes that this man needs her to figure out what happened to him. Like it or not, her sense of responsibility and her law enforcement instincts take over and she's in."

Unfortunately for a woman whose bags are already packed, this doesn't look like the kind of case that can be wrapped up easily. Instead, it becomes immediately more complex as Stetko turns her attention to the two remaining members of Weiss's team, men who could be either prime suspects or the next victims of a killer whose motivation she has yet to discover.

Meanwhile, amplifying the tension is the extreme weather, says Silver. "You feel the raw force of Antarctica impose itself as an ever-present character in the story. Things are more intense when every move you make is potentially fatal. Even investigating a crime scene is a more dangerous proposition here than it would be anywhere else--the transportation, the exposure, the possibility of being stranded. You take a risk every time you step outside

"Though it's part of our world, it looks like it could be outer space," producer Susan Downey attests, noting that sub-zero temperatures at the South Pole "can drop lower than numbers recorded on equatorial Mars. With this as our setting, it allowed us to put images onto the screen that have never been seen before in this genre, like the whiteout sequences, which are really dynamic, the aerial photography of the base or the Twin Otter coming in for a landing in weather that's already getting too choppy to support a plane."

Once the filmmakers committed to depict Antarctica, Downey confirms, they were explicit in their intent. "We wanted to lay out clearly what the temperatures are, how quickly a person can get frostbite or die from exposure. It's all there and it's all true."

The producers selected Manitoba, Canada, to represent exteriors of the frozen Pole; a location frigid enough to give cast and crew a feel for this element of the story and a genuine respect for the whiteout, a natural phenomenon that can literally steal your senses. Says Beckinsale, "There were times when I looked out and couldn't distinguish where the land and the sky met; it was just one huge whiteness. Totally disorienting. It's easy to imagine how scary that would be if you were alone. You could turn away from your camp for a moment and not find your way back."

"Antarctica will kill you. The elements alone tell us we don't belong there, and 'Whiteout' demonstrates this dramatically," states producer David Gambino.

That assessment is born out by the extensive research of Greg Rucka, who, with Steve Lieber, created the original Eisner Award-nominated graphic novel Whiteout on which the film is based, and also served as an executive producer. Declaring the continent "a desert without sand," Rucka says, "environment as a character intrigues me. So much of what we do and who we are is a direct result of the physical situation we're in. Antarctica has its own beauty. It's spectacular, but terrifying. It never allows you to let down your guard. The sun can be out but the wind will suddenly rev up to 130 miles per hour. You can't afford to be careless and forget what's beyond the door."

Sena's own fascination with these ideas, specifically the power of a severe environment on human behavior, was piqued years earlier. "I was in Lillehammer, Norway, shooting commercials for the 1994 Winter Olympics. At that time of year there were only about three hours of daylight. It was zero degrees at noon and 40-below at night, too cold to go out, so we stayed cooped up in our rooms. After several weeks, it was depressing. We found ourselves sitting around drinking night after night and it began to affect everyone's mood. My usually mellow producer started screaming if his coffee wasn't right and threatening to fire people over typos. Grips were fighting in the snow.

"I came home from that experience wondering what could happen to any group of people trapped in a harsh, claustrophobic place, not for weeks but for months," the director continues. "What if you threw in some dramatic event? What would these people do? I thought it was a great idea for a movie."

"You find out a lot about characters when you put them under unusual stress. It forces them to reach deep and reveal their best and worst qualities," offers screenwriter Jon Hoeber, who worked on bringing "Whiteout" to the screen with his brother and writing partner Erich Hoeber. Adds Erich, "Sometimes people can be so bound up with surviving that they lose their moral compass."

When the graphic novel was published in four installments by Oni Press in 1998, Sena followed it with avid interest. He tried unsuccessfully to secure film rights to the property, which were already spoken for. Then, he relates, "One day my agent mentioned, 'Joel Silver has a script called Whiteout; are you interested?' I said, 'Are you kidding? I've been trying to get ahold of this thing for five years!' So I called him. I said, 'Joel, I know this project. I've been making this movie in my head for years!'"

Indeed, screenwriters Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes suggest that the film's capacity to shock is rooted in "the way that Dominic captures this unbelievable and unpredictable world that so few people know, and the way in which he leads you to realize that being in a whiteout is very much like being lost in the dark."

It's no surprise to Sena that South Pole workers undergo psychological evaluations prior to long-term assignments. "The place can definitely get to you. What it comes down to is that some people can handle it and some can't. People who aren't necessarily bad end can up doing pretty bad things and that's one of the themes this movie explores."

As Beckinsale observes, "All that confinement can create a real powder keg. Explosive emotions are ready to blow and you don't always know what's coming. That's why I love thrillers. I love trying to figure things out and wanting to see what happens next."

"'Whiteout' is every inch a thriller, but it's character driven. It's very much Carrie Stetko's story interwoven with the action, like two mysteries unfolding simultaneously," says Joel Silver. "She's smart, she's tough, and it's a toughness that's not just physical but a fundamental part of her personality. She commands respect in a predominantly male domain. But she's also carrying a burden from her past that could complicate the work she needs to do. I have always appreciated strong female protagonists, and particularly in these kinds of stories. Kate really does a phenomenal job with the character."

Caught between the cold and a cold-blooded killer, the troubled marshal's history is revealed in fragments through the escalating drama around her until it becomes clear why she sought what Gambino calls "a metaphoric purgatory" in such a lonely place.

Says Sena, "We learn she was originally based in Miami. Something happened there that made her question her instincts and wonder if she's good enough at her job. So she retreats to the middle of nowhere and as far away from Miami as you can imagine, a place where nothing ever happens and she doesn't even have to carry a gun. She doesn't expect to be challenged here and, more importantly, her compromised judgment--if, in fact, it is compromised, won't put anyone's life in jeopardy."

Sena believes Stetko's decision to dig in and investigate Weiss's murder is a significant turning point for her. "In that respect, it's kind of like a classic Western and she's the marshal in a one-horse town, forced to pick up her gun again."

"What I found intriguing about the story and about Carrie Stetko is how human and flawed she is," says Beckinsale. "Because you don't know her backstory, you don't know what she is capable of until you see events unfold. How damaged is she? Are her instincts still good and will they carry her through or will they fail her again?"

Stetko's first lead takes her to Vostok to speak with one of the victim's former partners. Claiming to be terrified and on the run, he has inexplicably taken refuge at the Russian outpost. There, Stetko encounters U.N. investigator Robert Pryce, played by Gabriel Macht. Pryce has been sent to help expedite the case and control the flow of information about the crime, the first of its kind in a continent with no central government, loosely controlled by a multi-national treaty. In many ways, Pryce could prove to be the right man in the right place. But from Stetko's point of view, his arrival only means that she now has something else she wasn't looking for: a partner.

Says Macht, "Pryce offers his help but finds her disinterested to the point of hostility. From that beginning, it's interesting to see how he attempts to gain her trust. What develops is a kind of cat-and-mouse element between them that mirrors the cat-and-mouse of their tracking the killer."

Downey explains, "She's not sure what to make of him. He appears unannounced on site and essentially forces his way into the case. It seems to her that an awful lot of high level attention is being focused upon the death of one unremarkable geologist."

"Pryce has an interesting background, too, some of which is high-level military, but he keeps his history as close to the vest as Stetko does. Gabriel lets the details emerge subtly in a way that seems very natural for that kind of a personality," says Sena.

Meanwhile, alleviating some of the tension between the two is the young pilot Delfy, pulled from evacuation detail to fly Stetko first to the murder site and then to Vostok, and who will remain with her as needed. Or, as long as he can keep his plane's engine from freezing up. Columbus Short stars as the optimistic Iraqi War vet on his first civilian assignment, transporting personnel and equipment through the volatile conditions at the Pole.

"This is Delfy's second desert, with ice in place of sand," says Short. "He has an interesting view of the world. He sees the beauty in things, even in this desolate frozen wasteland. No matter how strange or difficult the circumstances, Delfy looks for the positive and the challenge and tries to meet it. To him, it's all an adventure."

See Also: Whiteout - Fighting For Your Life On Screen And Behind The Scenes

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