THE WHISPER MAN

The Whisper Man squanders the potential of Alex North’s novel with a bland interpretation that dilutes the suspense and gripping investigative procedural story, resulting in a generic crime thriller that not only largely wastes a talented cast, but never captures the spine tingling chills of North’s writing.

There is a disturbing comfort in a solid crime thriller, even if the films follow a pre-established blueprint. With great entries in the genre like Se7en, The Silence of the Lambs, and Gone Girl, audiences love a great twist and bleak story, and the novels of Alex North unequivocally play into that. The first of his novels to get adapted into a film is 2019’s The Whisper Man, heralding from producers Anthony and Joe Russo and featuring a star studded lead cast of Robert De Niro, Michelle Monaghan and Adam Scott. While all the elements are present for a chilling crime thriller, the film itself is less than the sum of its parts due to a lacklustre screenplay that buries the effective atmosphere of North’s writing with a bland take on the crime thriller procedural that gets lost in the routine narrative structuring of the genre, both wasting the talents of De Niro and Monaghan and failing to create an enticing experience for viewers.

As the film begins, there is an instant chill that looms over Ben Jacoby and Chase Palmer’s screenplay. Children are disappearing, their bodies turning up days later, a recent widow grieving the loss of his wife and trying to start a new life for his young son, and a mysterious figure stalking their house. North’s novel has all the right ingredients for an unsettling film, and while the film starts off with a promise of a disturbing tale to unfold, including one brilliant jump scare, once Tom’s son is abducted, the unsettling atmosphere of the film dissipates. Ideas of loss, generational trauma and father-son relationships swirl in the film’s first act as audiences meet the players while Jacoby and Palmer set the stage for the next child to be abducted, but these ideas never progress much further than their introductory phase, lessening the impact of the story’s ultimate destination as these ideas are not developed to make the story’s payoff worthwhile.

Once the procedural investigation takes over, the screenplay falls into the routine narrative of the genre. There is nothing wrong with a straightforward procedural, but Jacoby and Palmer’s screenplay leaves the characters severely underdeveloped, especially Monaghan’s Detective Amanda Beck who has no defining qualities and merely fulfills the requirement of having an investigating officer for the story. There are some interesting elements, notably with De Niro’s Detective Inspector Pete Willis being drawn back to an old case and delivering the film’s best moments opposite another veteran actor portraying the individual he put behind bars, and despite the film never faltering in its momentum of moving forward with reveals and developments in the case, it is unfortunately all told with such a bland perspective that offers few surprising twists and makes the mystery itself not very enticing until far too late.

As the film enters its final stretch, the story receives a much needed jolt of energy that kicks the suspense up to a maximum when the identity of who is kidnapping and murdering the children is revealed. It’s an interesting narrative direction, introducing some rich thematic material to reflect on the themes at the centre of the story in a new light, but instead of digging into these ideas, the screenplay instead opts for an action driven confrontation that crumbles under the emptiness of the film’s lacklustre first two acts. Yes there is an excitement to the showdown with the killer, suspense as the lives of our heroes hang in the balance, and some grisly moments that embrace the story’s darkness and the film’s rating, but it is not enough to salvage the entirety of the film from its generic procedural setup.

It’s hard to fully blame the screenplay for not giving the film’s cast enough material to work with, as even with the surface level writing, James Ashcroft still manages to get some good performances from some of his cast. Monaghan is decent as Detective Beck, bringing a cool intellect to the film that grounds the investigation despite the almost supernatural sense of dread the screenplay tries to evoke, but with a severe lack of character development, Monaghan has very little to do sadly. As always, De Niro is great and brings a much needed intensity to the film, especially in the scenes opposite the killer his character locked up decades earlier, delivering an electrifying pairing opposite another veteran actor which had the story focused on these two characters, The Whisper Man would have been a far more interesting film. Despite having two great recent performances in Severance and Hokum, Scott is downright terrible in the main role of Tom Kennedy, the grieving widow whose son is abducted. The emotions that Scott brings to the role never feels authentic nor bear the requisite heartbreak and despair that the role calls for, while the friction he builds opposite De Niro feels incredibly forced and leaves the fractured father-son relationship between their characters with no substance to no fault of De Niro’s efforts.

Not all page to screen adaptations work, as it’s always tricky to recapture the power of the written word and translate it to a visual medium without losing the source material’s effectiveness. Sometimes it’s a case of condensing too much into a short runtime, others due to a screenplay that cannot recapture the spark that made the novel a hit in the first play, and sadly The Whisper Man falls into the second category. Even with Robert De Niro and Michelle Monaghan leading the film and doing the best they can with the material they are handed, The Whisper Man fails to create the unsettling atmosphere required to create a gripping crime thriller that merely goes through the motions of the genre without the compelling writing to make a memorable entry in it.