The Whisper Man - Review

Rating: 2 out of 5

IT MAY play like a greatest hits of classic 90s thrillers but Netflix thriller The Whisper Man pales by comparison to everything it’s trying to emulate.

In doing so, it also wastes the talents of a decent cast, headed by Adam Scott and Michelle Monaghan, as well as Robert De Niro and Michael Keaton.

Based on the novel by British writer Alex North, this pits a writer and his estranged ex-cop father against a serial killer known as The Whisper Man, who has abducted the former’s young son.

It could (and perhaps should) have been a decent thriller in the Prisoners mould given the similarity of themes. But instead it feels strictly like a B-movie style streaming filler that also borrows heavily from the likes of The Silence of the Lambs, Kiss The Girls, the aforementioned Prisoners and even The Sixth Sense without taking on board any of the elements that made them so memorable.

Scott stars as Tom Kennedy, a crime fiction-writing widower, who has just moved back to his home town with young son Jake, while still mourning the loss of his wife and Jake’s mother.

Jake, for his part, is a loner who struggles to fit in and who has an imaginary friend - a girl in a blue top, who is subsequently joined by a “boy under the floor” once their move to a somewhat creepy (or at least heavily in need of repair) new home is completed.

Their arrival in town also coincides with the return of a serial killer who abducts young children, holds them hostage for a short while, records the grievances they hold against their parents, and then kills them. A determined detective, Amanda (Monaghan), is chasing him and notices stark similarities between the new killings and a former killer, now behind bars (and played by Michael Keaton), who was put away by De Niro’s now retired ex-cop, Pete.

When she approaches Pete for assistance, he is initially reluctant to help, but agrees to do so once Jake, the grandson he has never met, is taken.

Given the quality of its cast and the possibilities set up by its premise, you would be forgiven for thinking that James Ashcroft’s film offered plenty for them to sink their teeth into, even given the over familiarity of its genre tropes.

But The Whisper Man doesn’t allow for any emotional depth and struggles to convince as either a compelling thriller or a creepy chiller with possibly supernatural undertones. Instead, it appears content merely to go through the motions - much like De Niro’s barely there performance (barring the odd decent put down). But for a character who, it turns out, has sacrificed so many family relationships to the job, who is given a second chance, his acting here is curiously flat.

Keaton, for his part, at least has some fun with his killer, adopting some game ticks and mannerisms and toying with De Niro whenever his limited screen opportunities allow (there’s shades of his Pacific Heights performance here). But even so, his incarcerated killer feels like a lightweight, even pantomime Hannibal Lecter and more in keeping with the many wannabes that followed that seminal film.

Scott channels plenty of fury as the put-upon father, struggling with his grief and desperate to find his son, but he somehow fails to draw the sympathy his character should and, again, his performance exists in the shadow of better ones such as Hugh Jackman in Prisoners.

Monaghan is a good lead detective but, you guessed it, doesn’t really stand out from any of her peers in a role that also feels poorly written. There is nothing for her character to do beyond solving the case and it feels like another missed opportunity not to have delved a little more into her back story or personal life.

Without any real emotional complexity, you’re left to watch in the hope that The Whisper Man might at least offer an unexpectedly clever twist or something surprising. But it never does - hurtling, instead, towards a race against time scenario that underwhelms (including a fate for one character that has been hopelessly foreshadowed).

Perhaps most disappointing, given the direction the film eventually takes, is that The Whisper Man can’t even quite attain ‘so bad it’s good’ status. It’s not even bad - just tediously mundane. It offers absolutely nothing to shout about.

Certificate: 15

Running time: 1hr 53mins