‘The Whisper Man’ movie review: Robert De Niro sleepwalks through this snooze fest

Somewhere in the gloom and doom of James Ashcroft’s The Whisper Man (based on Alex North’s 2019 novel), lies an interesting film. Alas, it is not this one, as this serial killer-child-in-danger story lurches from one cavernous plot hole to the next without reason or logic. Any sense of danger or impending tragedy is lost in the sagging storytelling.

The film opens with Detective Amanda Beck (Michelle Monaghan) leading the search for a boy, Neil Spencer (Exavier Montanez). While the police do not find Neil, they find a decomposed body and then we learn of the serial killer terrorising the small town of Featherbank.

Called the Whisper Man, the killer abducts and kills children. The only problem is that the Whisper Man, Frank Carter (Michael Keaton), was caught and has been in prison all these years.

A still from ‘The Whisper Man’
| Photo Credit:
Netflix

So, did he have an accomplice? Is he able to direct the abductions and killings from prison? Is it a copycat? Into this maelstrom of dread and suspicion comes Tom Kennedy (Severance’s Adam Scott), a crime writer, with his eight-year-old son, Jake (Acston Luca Porto) after the death of his wife.

When Jake is taken, Tom turns to the only person who can help, Detective Inspector Pete Willis (Robert De Niro), who put Carter away. Willis is also Tom’s estranged father. The Whisper Man case (a boy was still missing when Carter was arrested) drove Willis to drink and destroyed his family.  

One of the suspects is a creepy true crime junkie, Norman Collins (Hamish Linklater), who lives in a house full of murder memorabilia and has a passion for opera music. The Whisper Man is supposed to be about fathers and sons and how the sins of commission and omission by the fathers are visited upon and carried over to the sons. That is all very well and crime has often been used as a framework to comment on the many ills of society. The cardinal error The Whisper Man makes is in failing to present a solid mystery.  

You are constantly brought out of the film as you puzzle over the weird decisions the characters make. Why do Jake and Tom move into a big, rambling, leaking house that appears to have been chosen solely because the plot requires bodies in the basement? Even if it was Jake who liked the house, as the film seems to imply, what did he like about it, considering he is not able to climb a staircase after finding his mother dead at the foot of the stairs?

A still from ‘The Whisper Man’
| Photo Credit:
Netflix

How is it that Tom has not told Jake not to talk to strangers and why for the love of God does Tom not tell the police that there was a blue-gloved hand in the letterbox just before Jake was abducted? One can see the solution a mile away even if one has been doing a thousand other things and only giving the screen cursory attention.

Despite the strong cast, everyone seems to have sleepwalked through their roles, the worst offender being De Niro whose constant reaction seems to be a shrug. Produced by the Russo Brothers, the people behind MCU’s greatest hits, The Whisper Man is based on a playground rhyme — ‘If your window’s left unlatched, you’ll hear him tapping at the glass/If you’re lonely, sad, and blue, the Whisper Man will come for you’. And the rhyme is far more chilling than the movie.

The Whisper Man is currently streaming on Netflix