The Russo brothers are now a brand unto themselves. Whether helming as directors or solely producing, there’s a certain “offensively inoffensive” blandness that has characterized the work they are involved in. The Whisper Man, despite some genuinely suspenseful moments, does nothing to buck this trend. Directed by James Ashcroft and produced by the brothers Russo, this serial killer procedural — based on Alex North’s smash hit novel of the same name — is most notable for hitting just about every Netflix original prescriptive one could possibly imagine.
Tom Kennedy (Adam Scott) is a crime writer and single father who moves back to his hometown with his 8-year-old son. A killer — the Whisper Man — happens to be on the loose, murmuring to children through unlatched windows and doors, convincing them to leave their house and fall directly into his grasp. He then holds them captive, eventually recording a tape of his conversations with them. This always precedes their death, and Tom is terrified when his own son is abducted by the Whisper Man one night soon after having moved into their cavernous townhouse. These early moments following Tom’s son, his eerie interactions with an imaginary girl, his run-ins with the Whisper Man poking his latex-gloved hand through the mail slot in the front door, are the only moments of this film that boast some horror muscularity. Not in the aesthetic sense, but merely in the orchestration of set pieces; in the aesthetic sense, it’s indistinguishable from a pharmaceutical commercial.
And then the movie introduces us to Tom’s estranged, retired-detective father (Robert De Niro), an imprisoned serial killer (Michael Keaton) who may be puppeteering whomever’s committing these ongoing crimes, an active detective (Michelle Monaghan) in pursuit of the Whisper Man, and a suspicious “collector” (Hamish Linklater) of morbid artifacts, also with possible ties to the recent spate of killings and disappearances. All of these characters are written with paper-thin characterization — Monaghan tries her best while given nothing more than a detective archetype to work with; Scott is unconvincingly melodramatic as an empty void motivated only by daddy issues and a deceased wife; and De Niro seems as if he’s been given a healthy dose of Ambien each day (or single day) that he was on set. At least Linklater and Keaton are hamming it up and offering a little to chew on, but even then it’s only minimally.
The Whisper Man is, based on premise alone, tapping into the tradition of ’90s neo-noir thrillers. The most obvious allusion would be The Silence of the Lambs, but even mentioning that title feels in poor taste given that Ashcroft’s film is devoid of the directorial imprint, the incendiary performances, the lurid atmosphere and skin-crawling sensation to even deserve the same breath. And for a film whose nucleus is a serial killer of young children whose calling card is the creepy, titular aural signature, there is shockingly little… well, shock to be had. Instead, we’re bogged down with perplexing uses of split diopter, a comically offensive depiction of housing projects in one particular moment, a forced emotional crux between Scott and De Niro that musters no pathos, an unnecessarily convoluted plot, and a bland visual texture that screams: MADE FOR NETFLIX. Perhaps what distinguishes The Whisper Man most, however, is that the streaming giant might not be responsible for the film’s flattened artistry. Because the Russos are involved, and because this legacy of a/un-aesthetic filmmaking is one that defines their careers, this critic will lay all available blame on them.
DIRECTOR: James Ashcroft; CAST: Robert De Niro, Michelle Monaghan, Adam Scott, Michael Keaton, John Carroll Lynch; DISTRIBUTOR: Netflix; STREAMING: August 28; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 51 min.
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