Here’s a poster pull-quote: “‘The Whisper Man’: It’s fine, I guess!” In fact, as far as Netflix original movies go, I think you could even say “The Whisper Man” is slightly above-average. The streaming service has become infamous for pumping out forgettable junk designed to play in the background as people scroll through their phones, and “The Whisper Man” rises above that … ever-so-slightly.
This is mostly due to the work of director James Ashcroft, who tries his damndest to inject some menace and style into a fairly rote thriller. Ashcroft directed the extremely bleak horror-thriller “Coming Home in the Dark” as well as the surprisingly nasty “The Rule of Jenny Pen,” so he knows a thing or two about cooking up unpleasant experiences.
With “The Whisper Man,” especially during the film’s atmospheric first act, Ashcroft creates a distinct, creepy mood enhanced by windy nights, old dark houses, and cinematic storms. There’s also the constant suggestion of gruesome, gory details lurking beneath the surface of the film, although the screenplay, credited to Ben Jacoby and Chase Palmer (adapting Alex North’s novel), works a little too hard to smooth them over and rush past before the audience can stop and dwell on things too long.
The Whisper Man is a serial killer thriller about a father and son trying to solve a mystery
Novelist and widower Tom Kennedy (Adam Scott) has just moved his traumatized son Jake (Acston Luca Porto) into a huge, gothic rental home, the type with a creepy basement and an outlandishly huge attic. Tom seems like a good father, but he also struggles to deal with Jake’s habit of talking to imaginary friends. That’ll be the least of their problems, though, because one night, Jake is abducted.
You see, there’s a killer on the loose, murdering young boys after keeping them captive for a few days while forcing them to record upsetting messages to their parents. And here’s a twist: this M.O. matches an infamous killer known as The Whisper Man, aka Frank Carter. But Carter was caught and convicted and is currently locked away serving a life sentence (Note: even though the info is readily available online, Netflix has asked critics not to reveal the well-known actor playing Carter, so I will oblige while also saying said actor seems to be having a really good time hamming it up as a perverted killer).
Here’s another twist: it turns out Tom is the son of retired Detective Pete Willis (Robert De Niro), the cop who caught the Whisper Man 25 years ago. Has the killer found a way to seek revenge by abducting Pete’s grandson? What do you think, friends? Tom and Pete are estranged, because the Whisper Man case turned Pete into an alcoholic who had no time for his family and Tom resents that. The script dabbles in some therapy-speak about fathers and sons and the trauma that can pass between them, but it feels only perfunctory. No time for that stuff!
Robert De Niro seems bored and tired in The Whisper Man
Scott is fairly sturdy as a frantic, angry father, although the character is extremely paper thin. We know he’s a writer, but that’s about it as far as character development goes. Beyond that, Scott gets in a few funny lines and coasts on his charisma. The same can not be said for De Niro, who is downright somnambulant here, playing Pete as a guy in need of an afternoon nap. I’m still firmly in the Robert De Niro fan camp, and the legendary actor has proven he still has the chops: 2023’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” has De Niro turning in an incredible performance that I genuinely believe will be held up as one of his finest when all is said and done.
But the actor seems completely checked-out here, and I have to confess that bummed me out a little. When I was a budding young cinephile first getting into the game, De Niro was one of the O.G. great actors I became enamored with, and the stories about how he would use the Method to do extensive research and fully inhabit the characters he played became catnip to my movie nerd emergence.
Watching his blasé performance here, I kept thinking of those old stories, and couldn’t help but wonder: does Robert De Niro still do those meticulous things that made him such an acting icon? Or does it not matter to him as much anymore, especially when he’s working with Netflix? Did he do extensive research into sleepy, boring old men before he showed up on “The Whisper Man” set?
Michelle Monaghan and Hamish Linklater do their best to add some energy to the film
Also on hand is the very talented Michelle Monaghan, one of the most beautiful women on the planet, who appears to be wearing heavy makeup to make her look more frumpy — probably because she’s playing a dogged detective who is also a Quaker, and everyone thought it would be weird if such a character looked drop-dead gorgeous. As far as the cop characters here go, Monaghan, as Detective Amanda Beck, is at least trying, although like Scott she’s also saddled with an underwritten part (the Quaker religion thing threatens to be almost interesting before the movie rushes past it and forgets about it entirely).
And hey! The always-welcomed Hamish Linklater, seen recently in the surprise Apple TV hit “Widow’s Bay,” is also among the cast, and while his part is relatively small, he makes the most of it, playing a smug, smarmy, somewhat creepy potential suspect obsessed with serial killer paraphernalia. I wish the movie was more about him and less about everything else. Ah well, maybe I’ll just rewatch “Midnight Mass” again.
The Whisper Man is watchable but also a bit too predictable
One of the biggest issues plaguing “The Whisper Man” ends up being predictability. During the recent press tour for “The Odyssey,” Christopher Nolan garnered attention when he said “to be able to identify the mechanism [of a film] does not invalidate the mechanism.” Nolan was talking about how some will criticize a film if they can easily spot where the story might be going, and how that’s a wrong-headed approach to watching a film.
I agree with Nolan that this shouldn’t be a dealbreaker. If a movie is trafficking in familiar movie storytelling, that doesn’t make it bad. It’s not a viewer’s job to outsmart a movie’s script. And yet, “The Whisper Man” heads towards such a painfully obvious twist in regards to the killer’s identity that it becomes distracting. The characters hunting the killer take such a long time to figure out the obvious that they all feel kind of clueless — or worse, stupid.
If it sounds like I’m being wholly negative here, I’ll counter that by adding that “The Whisper Man” really is mostly fine. It’s easily digestible and has a few creepy moments that’ll give genre fans a thrill or two. It’s not particularly memorable, but it’s sturdy enough and has enough visual flair that I found myself mostly grooving with it. Mostly. Once upon a time, average thrillers with big name actors like this actually got released in theaters, but since those days appear to be over, streaming is the only place you can find this sort of dependable but uninspired experience. We have to take what we can get these days, I suppose.
/Film Rating: 5.5 out of 10
“The Whisper Man” is streaming on Netflix August 28, 2026.
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