'The Whisper Man' movie review: Thriller spends time whispering

Some films have a premise that does most of the talking. ‘The Whisper Man’ is one of them. A serial killer, a kidnapped child, a retired detective pulled back into a nightmare he thought he had buried, and a new killer seemingly recreating the crimes of the infamous Whisper Man — there is enough here to make you listen closely.Pete Willis (Robert De Niro) was the detective who caught Frank Carter (Michael Keaton), the original Whisper Man. Years later, his grandson Jake is abducted in eerily similar circumstances, drawing Pete and his son Tom Kennedy (Adam Scott) back into the past. As Detective Amanda Beck (Michelle Monaghan) investigates the apparent copycat, old wounds between father and son begin to surface.Hollywood’s Biggest Films in 2026: A sneak peek at the year’s epic releasesThat is where the film is most interesting. Pete’s instinct is protection; Tom’s relationship with him is rooted in resentment. One father fights to save his son, while the other struggles not to become the father he despised.Unfortunately, the film sometimes mistakes volume for tension. Scenes are unnecessarily dramatised, characters are reduced to thinner versions of what they could have been, and logic occasionally whispers its way out of the room. Amanda is particularly underused, another character with potential reduced to little more than a plot device. Yet the film’s final question is more interesting than its killer: is evil born in a person, or whispered into them by what they endure? ‘The Whisper Man’ has something to say. Unfortunately, it spends too much time whispering and not enough time making itself heard.

Source: Deccan Herald