Robert De Niro plays a cop who reluctantly comes out of retirement to track down a copycat killer in 2026's The Whisper Man. I say 2026 but this feels remarkably like an average 1996 movie. Not a great De Niro movie like Heat or Jackie Brown, though The Whisper Man does reunite De Niro with his Jackie Brown co-star Michael Keaton. It's more like Secret Window or any number of mid tier Ashley Judd or Michael Douglas movies from the period. It was a fairly enjoyable throwback, though.
Adam Scott's also in the film, playing De Niro's son named Tom. Tom and his little boy have just moved into a massive, gorgeous house with lots of bookcases that I would very much like to have. Then, one day, Tom's son is kidnapped and it looks like the MO of the so-called "Whisper Man". The trouble is, Tom's father, Peter (De Niro), put the real Whisper Man away decades ago. Michael Keaton plays the original killer and in interrogation scenes between him and De Niro, Keaton really hams it up as the psychotic paedophile. De Niro's performance is far more restrained. I assume it's a choice, or maybe he's just profoundly tired, but he's a long way from Raging Bull. All the rage is with Adam Scott in this one.
Michelle Monaghan plays the younger detective working with De Niro's character and it's all a basic, unremarkable procedural except it feels like something that would've been churned out thirty years ago.
The Whisper Man is available on Netflix.
No comments:
Post a Comment