WHAT WE’RE WATCHING: The Whisper Man: An adequate Netflix thriller boosted by Robert De Niro performance

It’s usually a good sign when high-profile movie producers snap up the film rights to a novel before the book is even published.

This was the case with British author Alex North’s 2019 thriller The Whisper Man, which had already been optioned in 2018 by Joe and Anthony Russo, directors of the smash Marvel hit Avengers: Endgame (2019), and producers of a few of Netflix’s most popular movies, including Extraction (2020) and The Gray Man (2022).

With American producers at the helm, the action is perhaps inevitably transplanted from the UK to the US. Following the death of his wife, crime novelist Tom Kennedy (Severance’s Adam Scott) has moved to his New Jersey home town, Gareton, hoping for a fresh start for his eight-year-old son, Jake (Acston Luca Porto), who was traumatised after finding his mom’s body when he came home from school.

Their move coincides with the abduction of a young boy in a case similar to a string of murders that took place in Gareton 25 years before this. Detective Amanda Beck (Michelle Monaghan from True Detective) calls on the help of retired cop Pete Willis (Robert De Niro), who was responsible for catching the culprit, Frank Carter (Michael Keaton).

Known as the Whisper Man for the way he would whisper at the bedroom windows of young boys to lure them into the night, Carter has been in prison ever since, which leads to the conclusion that the new perpetrator must be a copy­cat, or perhaps an accomplice who’s never been identified.

At first reluctant to get involved, Willis is forced to take part when Jake is abducted and Kennedy asks him for help. Turns out Kennedy is Willis’s son who moved away and even changed his surname because of his father’s obsession with catching Carter. Together with Beck, the estranged father and son must unravel the killer’s identity and save Jake before it’s too late.

Comparisons to The Silence of the Lambs (1991) are inevitable for any movie in the cop-vs-serial-killer genre, and inevitably any film will fall short when measured against this classic.

But though it probably won’t linger in your memory, The Whisper Man is still an entertaining, intriguing thriller that holds your attention throughout – a solid, middle-of-the-road mystery elevated by a great cast with enough twists and red herrings to keep most audience members guessing.

De Niro brings gravitas to his scenes opposite Scott, Monaghan and Keaton, who all at least try to do something interesting with their stereotypical characters. Midnight Mass’s Hamish Linklater also livens things up a bit as an eccentric collector of murder memorabilia.

New Zealander James Ashcroft (Coming Home in the Dark, The Rule of Jenny Pen) directs with capable efficiency a premise that a brilliant filmmaker could have turned into something truly nerve-shredding. Ashcroft only really manages to ratchet up the tension and sense of danger in the finale. And viewers familiar with the genre will likely guess the killer’s identity long before then.

Clichés abound, to get through all the important plot points events feel somewhat rushed and a few coincidences stretch credulity.

But if you’re an undemanding viewer looking for a fairly entertaining suspense film to distract you for a few hours, The Whisper Man fits the bill. DM