{"id":753377,"date":"2026-08-29T08:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T08:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/753377\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T08:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T08:22:12","slug":"the-whisper-man-review-solid-and-starry-serial-killer-thriller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/753377\/","title":{"rendered":"The Whisper Man Review \u2013 ‘Solid and starry serial killer thriller’"},"content":{"rendered":"

When his son is abducted, widower Tom (Adam Scott) enlists his estranged ex-cop dad Pete (Robert De Niro) to help, along with Detective Amanda (Michelle Monaghan). Could the long-solved \u2018Whisper Man\u2019 murders be making a comeback?<\/p>\n

Many of the films produced under the Russo brothers\u2019 AGBO banner<\/a> feel \u2013 in a good way \u2013 like \u201890s throwbacks. 21 Bridges<\/a> was a solid cop thriller elevated by the late, great Chadwick Boseman. Extraction<\/a> was a solid hardman action movie elevated by the muscular Chris Hemsworth. The Whisper Man<\/a> might not boast an MCU leading man, but it is \u2013 you guessed it \u2013 a solid serial killer thriller elevated by its star-studded cast.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The plot is nothing you haven\u2019t seen before: a long-solved serial killer case of the \u2018Whisper Man\u2019 \u2013 who abducts emotionally-vulnerable young boys, with a nursery rhyme-esque \u2018tapping at the glass\u2019 mythology surrounding him \u2013 rears its head again many years later, when a new crop of kids start to go missing. The spree\u2019s re-emergence coincides with emotionally shut-down widower Tom Kennedy (Scott) returning to his hometown, paying no attention to his son Jake\u2019s (Acston Luca Porto) queries about seeing and hearing strange things in their new house. Before you know it, little Jake has been spirited away, sparking a quest to find him before he\u2019s left for dead by\u2026 well, is it even the Whisper Man, since he\u2019s firmly behind bars?<\/p>\n

An extended scene between Michael Keaton and Robert De Niro is the highlight here<\/p>\n

What heightens director James Ashcroft\u2019s adaptation of Alex North\u2019s novel is the eye-poppingly stacked cast. Jake\u2019s disappearance causes Tom to reconnect with his distant detective dad Pete, a substantial role with which Robert De Niro imbues a baseline level of gravitas. The material hardly stretches him, but De Niro is \u2013 of course \u2013 extremely watchable in this kind of serious thriller fare. He is also believably cold in his relationship with Scott, their distance echoed in the survival-mode emotional wall Tom also displays to young Jake; running throughout The Whisper Man is a succession of broken father-son relationships, with ruinous results for all involved. Michelle Monaghan is handed a cookie-cutter role as the current cop on Jake\u2019s case, but brings another dependable presence.<\/p>\n

The juicier roles lie on The Whisper Man\u2019s more sinister side. Hamish Linklater, still in his post-Midnight Mass career boom, brings an eerie calm to murder-enthusiast Norman, his true crime obsession making him a prime suspect in the Whisper Man 2.0 killings. And Michael Keaton makes the most of limited screentime as the original Whisper Man, long locked away for his sick deeds, ready to play Hannibal Lecter-esque mind games with the police when they seek his advice on who might be picking up where he left off. An extended scene between Keaton and De Niro is the highlight here; two titans simply going head-to-head across a table.<\/p>\n

There are no surprises to be found in The Whisper Man; it isn\u2019t destined to go down as a new classic of the genre. But with a cast this great, well-crafted tension, and just enough character meat on the bones, it\u2019s a film that deserves neither whispers, nor shouts, but a regular-volume recommendation. May AGBO\u2019s \u201890s throwback project long continue.<\/p>\n

A Netflix serial killer thriller that\u2019s \u2013 whisper it! \u2013 actually pretty good, with a heavyweight cast that brings greater heft to solid if forgettable material.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When his son is abducted, widower Tom (Adam Scott) enlists his estranged ex-cop dad Pete (Robert De Niro)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-753377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}