We all know Netflix is in the business of crime thrillers, and The Whisper Man only helps strengthen that business. Yet, while it falls right in line with the genre that the studio is often known for, it doesn’t do it any substantial service, delivering a middling crime thriller at best. And with a star-studded cast, an interesting director in James Ashcroft, and a story with potential, it’s a mystery in and of itself as to how something like The Whisper Man could be so disappointing.

Adam Scott plays Tom Kennedy, a single father of eight-year-old Jake Kennedy (Acston Luca Porto) who just moved back to his late wife’s hometown. They each deal with her passing in different ways – Jake by creating and conversing with imaginary friends, and Tom by finding the nearest whiskey bottle. Soon after another boy in town goes missing, the same happens to Jake. Amanda Beck (a stoic performance from Michelle Monaghan) is heading up the police department on the case, searching for whoever has abducted the boys. 

Enter The Whisper Man, a previous kidnapper/murderer combo that has since been put away for life in prison by Peter Willis (Robert De Niro). Beck questions Willis about the possibility of a protege now performing the same types of crimes, hoping to find Jake as fast as possible.

A small-town crime that escalates as more suspects pop up and the stakes rise presents the vibe of a Prisoners (2013) or Gone Girl (2014), even though in execution it doesn’t come close. As Netflix often does, The Whisper Man possesses a sense of “streaming slop.” It’s got a particular sheen over it, imbuing each scene and sequence with either way too much darkness or way too much “movie-ification.” 

Additionally, the should-be lights-out cast that includes an Oscar winner, an Oscar nominee, and two Primetime Emmy nominees all feel like they are in different movies. Monaghan isn’t given much to do outside of being the rough-edged, impenetrable cop who is only there to get the job done. As for De Niro and Scott, father and son, the chemistry and character build-up are virtually nonexistent, with De Niro clearly present for the Netflix paycheck.

Netflix

Hamish Linklater and Michael Keaton do, in fact, deliver some interesting work and really take hold of the few scenes they are in, adding some intrigue to the story at large. If The Whisper Man had really let its full cast deliver some capital “A” acting, and leaned into the character motivations and backstory more than delivering a convoluted story of inmates, kidnappers, and absent fathers, then it would have stood out as one of Netflix’s best of the year.

The movie uses the phrase, “If your window’s left unlatched, you’ll hear him tapping at the glass,” as a mantra for the legacy of The Whisper Man. It’s cool. However, the sentence itself, and the others in the killer’s story, don’t get used nearly as well as they could, leaving potential knocking on the window. And that is perhaps the most frustrating part of The Whisper Man. As the case moves forward, genuinely intriguing ideas are laid to waste in exchange for thriller clichés and lame twists. 

The theme of failed fatherhood is the gas that keeps the engine of the movie running, and instead of keeping the pedal steady, or even flooring it sometimes to hit it home, it floods the engine, killing any chance for intrigue. It is rife with overexplanation of why something should matter to a character instead of just actually making it matter, ultimately leaning on platitudes instead of creativity. And it’s not only the narrative choices that fall within this realm of dismay: the production value, the score, and the cinematography all under-deliver.

The Whisper Man is ultimately the perfect Netflix movie to fire up on a Wednesday evening, by yourself or with a partner, enjoy a few glasses of wine during its just under two-hour runtime, text your friend as the credits roll to tell them you watched it, and then never think about it again. Which isn’t a bad thing, but it isn’t necessarily a really good thing either. It doesn’t offer anything memorable, opting to fade away into the confines of Netflix originals purgatory. A movie that had all the right parts, from story to filmmaker to cast, that just fell flat, which is perhaps even more of a mystery than The Whisper Man himself.

Review Courtesy of Ethan Simmie

Feature Image Credit to Netflix