THE WHISPER MAN Review

Oh, the lowly Netflix Original Movie.

I talk repeatedly about Shudder movies and about how I never ever know what I'm going to get when I open up that service. It could be an extremely delightful hidden gem, or it could be repetitive crap I've seen dozens of times before.

But with Netflix... man, doesn't it FEEL like we know what we are going to get?

For every K-Pop Demon Hunters, we get about twenty The Last Days Of American Crime. Netflix movies are notoriously bad, but they somehow are allowed by law to keep churning them out onto a fully suspecting populace.

So far this year, I've been subjected to Little Brother, Office Romance, and Thrash. Obviously, none of them were winners. I mean... I know what Netflix is doing. I'm not naive here. Walking into a Netflix Original is like walking on the set of Jackass. You may not know exactly what's going to happen to you, but odds are that it will suck!

But when I heard that Adam Scott and Robert De Niro had a new picture called The Whisper Man exclusive to the streamer, what did I do? I turned it on, like a schmuck.

The Whisper Man sees Scott and his young son move into a new neighborhood, not far from Scott's character's estranged father (De Niro), in the wake of the matriarch of the family's untimely death. This town has a past, though; it's the former stomping grounds of a serial child abductor known as The Whisper Man! But everything is okay now because The Whisper Man has been behind bars for years, ever since he was arrested by De Niro.

Kidnappings start up again, however, and it's not long before the bodies of missing children start turning up. And soon, Scott's son vanishes into the night, as well. Is he the most recent victim of the new Whisper Man? And will his disappearance reunite his dad with his grandfather?

And most importantly, will I actually enjoy a 2026 Netflix movie?!

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+ Adam Scott does a solid job playing a desperate father and a betrayed adult son. He has a pretty decent range across this, and he continues to improve his career with every new project. An early scene where he defends his bullied son at school earned a cheer from me, and he played the defensive father very well. I appreciate seeing him in every new job he takes, and I dug him in Hokum earlier this year. I might like it even more if he would go back to comedy more regularly since we now know he can do roles outside of it, but he's doing stand-out work everywhere. 

+ The third act picks the film up a bit and carries it across the finish line, even if it manufactures some drama and has the antagonist get in more shots that they really should have been able. Aside from that complaint, the tension ratchets up, and everything finally starts feeling as dire as the movie wanted me to believe it was for the first two acts. I hit a point where I was sat up straight and finally all the way into the tale...

- But on that Up's note, I found most of the first two acts of The Whisper Man to be pretty boring. There is a lot of wandering around and some mystery elements that the story is trying to build, but I just never felt engaged with it. The second act in particular is stretched out too long, and my interest waned as it wore on. It just felt like it was Robert De Niro and Michelle Monaghan driving around and talking a lot, while Adam Scott has to act sad and pissy at De Niro. There just wasn't anything happening that made me excited for the next moment or scene.

- Speaking of De Niro, I know his place in Hollywood history is set in stone and that he can do anything he wants to nowadays. But like so many of his projects on this side of the millennium, it felt like he was sleepwalking through this. There is nothing he brings here that really "ROBERT DE NIRO'S" the role up; I feel like any older actor could have done what he does in The Whisper Man. He acts defeated and tired, but dedicated to fixing his relationship with his son. It's not bad stuff, but it doesn't require a talent of his magnitude. He has one good scene of going back-and-forth with Michael Keaton, but I'm still unconvinced that moment needed De Niro to pull it off. 

OVERALL

I won't lie to you: I totally watched this movie because I thought it was going to be a horror flick. My desire to go into most movies blind led me to choose this sight unseen, and both the title of it and the Netflix image made me think this would be a scary movie. It's not like De Niro hasn't done those kinds of flicks before (see: Hide And Seek from 2005), and Scott has done his own fair share, so I thought it was plausible. Regardless, by the time I figured out I was watching a crime mystery, I wasn't really in the mood for such a flick. Not that I think that completely colored my mood--The Whisper Man is still not a good movie either way--but I will admit to not being interested in what I was seeing. Still, nothing about this won me over, and I really can't recommend this to... virtually anyone. There's nothing new or interesting here.

🍿 SCORE = 36 / 100