Director: Dominic Sena
Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Gabriel Macht and Tom Skerritt
Distributor: Roadshow Films
Runtime: 96 mins. Reviewed in Nov 2011
Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Gabriel Macht and Tom Skerritt
Distributor: Roadshow Films
Runtime: 96 mins. Reviewed in Nov 2011
Under all the snow and ice and the exotic Antarctica settings, this is a rather routine murder mystery plus theft. The beginning of the southern hemisphere winter and evacuation of the base provides an interesting location for the work of American Marshal, Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) and some hazards for the law and for the criminals.
It opens with the crash of a Russian plane in 1957 – which means the discovery of the plane decades later and the theft of what might be nuclear material by person or persons unknown on the Antarctic base.
For a slender actress, Kate Beckinsale has become something of an action movie icon (the Underworld series) and is both tough and vulnerable here (courtesy of some flashbacks to her Chicago police past). Gabriel Macht is an FBI investigator who helps and has to fight the villain in snow and ice gales. Tom Skerritt is the benign about-to-retire doctor.
There are some more deaths, desperation in the snow, a confrontation and a final revelation (on a base in Antarctica there are limited personnel, therefore, suspects) of who is the hidden ally. With the short list of possibilities, the culprit will be on your list, perhaps on top of the list.
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