The Whisper Man

Netflix has been politely asking reviewers to refrain from spoiling a familiar face that shows up in a crucial role in their straight-to-streaming serial killer drama “The Whisper Man.” That’s funny because even if that information was not already all over the interweb, the movie itself spoils it early on. No, from the menacing crane shot kicking things off to the flamboyant red herring, there are no real surprises in store for New Zealand director James Ashcroft’s American feature film debut. I wondered what Tom Kennedy (Adam Scott) would make of that given that he’s a mystery writer himself, though the screenplay adapted from the book barely exploits this fact. Neither does the movie exploit its would-be prevalent theme of fathers and sons, setting it up but never baking it in. Tom’s son Jake (Acston Luca Porto) is abducted, and Tom’s dad Peter (Robert DeNiro) was responsible for locking up a serial killer decades ago who might be connected to this case, and so both Tom and Detective Amanda Beck (Michelle Monaghan, as in “Gone Baby Gone,” constantly on the screen with nothing to do) recruit him into the fold. If there is one thing to write home about it is Robert DeNiro. His performance is so solemn that he might be accused of Phoning it In, to quote the age-old parlance, when really, he is embodying a man who has chosen to recede from the land of the living. It’s just that his finely calibrated dour air cannot help but embody the rest of the movie too.