Netflix's 'The Whisper Man' Isn't Actually Confusing, It's Dumb

Sometimes, you watch a crime “thriller” and it feels confusing because there’s genuine complexity layered throughout. Other times, it feels confusing because your brain is too generous — it wants to insert complexity where there’s only boneheaded simplicity. You know that 2+2=4, but surely Netflix wouldn’t greenlight a movie with Robert DeNiro, Adam Scott, and Michelle Monaghan that’s this straightforward. So your brain does some multiplication and division where none actually exists. Like, surely the imaginary friend in the blue sweater must be supernatural. She must somehow connect to the serial killer mystery. Except she doesn’t — she’s just the kid’s dead mom.

That’s The Whisper Man, which feels like a throwback to ’90s crime thrillers, but not in a good way. It’s a dumbed-down James Patterson adaptation when the original James Patterson adaptations were already dumbed down enough. It’s bleak, pointless, and honestly, just not good. I know reviews don’t move the needle anymore — people watch Netflix because they recognize the actor in the thumbnail and because it’s new. But honestly, don’t. Find something else. Rewatch an old movie. Do a puzzle. Read a book. Touch grass.

Spoiler recap:

Adam Scott is crime novelist Tom Kennedy. He and his son move to New Jersey after his wife’s death. A series of kids start turning up dead, reminiscent of murders committed by The Whisper Man. Except The Whisper Man — Michael Keaton’s Frank Carter — is locked up because Tom Kennedy’s father, Detective Pete Willis (Robert DeNiro), put him away years ago.

Tom’s young son, Jake, goes missing, and Tom recruits his estranged father to help find him, along with Michelle Monaghan’s Detective Amanda Beck. There’s investigating. Red herrings, including Hamish Linklater as a serial killer artifact collector. But if there’s a copycat killer, the first place I’m looking is the original killer’s son. That’s common sense. They don’t figure it out until an hour-and-a-half in.

Because of course Frank Jr. (Owen Teague) is the copycat. Of course his victim is the grandson of the man who caught Frank Sr. That’s just serial killer movie 101.

Michelle Monaghan gets stabbed apprehending him but survives. Pete Willis gets stabbed and dies. Frank Jr. beats Tom senseless. And then — this is the good part — Frank Jr. falls through the attic floorboard. Weak flooring. That’s how the villain loses.

The codas are something else. Frank Sr. gave Pete the information needed to find his son in exchange for five minutes alone with him in a prison cell. Frank Sr. uses that time to strangle his own son because, apparently, as The Whisper Man, he always wanted to kill his son but kept murdering other kids instead to avoid it. Mission accomplished, I guess. He finally scratched that itch.

Meanwhile, Jake — the actual eight-year-old — tells his Dad that his dead mom helped him survive. His imaginary friend, his dead mom, told him where to go. That’s how he ended up in the attic with the weak floorboard. But she’s not actually supernatural. Just his imagination. And the weak floorboard? That was just dumb luck.

I want to say that everyone here phones it in, but it’s honestly more like a text. Like, the words are there, but all the actors are completely checked out, too busy spending those Netflix checks. But if you want to see a good Adam Scott movie, watch Hokum.