‘If you leave a door half open, soon you’ll hear the whispers spoken…’
I think there is a possibility that Netflix gets a bit of a bad rep as a content creator, they are, after all, responsible for Knives Out, The Irishman, Stranger Things, Marriage Story… the list goes on. But when people talk about Netflix slop, we all know what they mean. Cookie-cutter genre movies that follow predictable and derivative story beats with flat, unremarkable direction and lifeless performances. Taking that as a guide, The Whisper Man is probably the epitome of Netflix slop…
Let’s begin by taking a look at some of the talent involved in this thing. The Rule of Jenny Pen director James Ashcroft. A cast featuring Robert de Niro, Adam Scott, Michelle Monaghan, Michael Keating and Owen Teague. Cinematography from regular David Lynch collaborator Peter Deming (this guy shot Mulholland Drive, for chrissakes). And yet, the finished product is one of the most boiler-plate, tedious and unaffecting movies of the decade. This is a story about a child being abducted set against the backdrop of a series of child murders and yet I watched it for two hours (!) and felt absolutely nothing. This is partly because the cast (aside from Monaghan who provides far and away the best performance of the film) seem bizarrely uninterested in providing any emotional depth or authenticity, and partly because it’s impossible not to compare The Whisper Man to the properties it is so clearly ripping off, namely The Silence of the Lambs franchise and the serial killer movies of David Fincher (Se7en, Zodiac and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).
Honestly, this whole endeavour feels like it was created by AI. There isn’t a shred of humanity in this thing. It’s just trope after trope trotted out with with no thought or care to anything of any worth or meaning. When you’re watching de Niro as a world-weary retired cop returning to the job to interview Keaton’s psychopathic child murderer, this is a scene that should crackle and pop with energy and tension. This is two incredibly acclaimed actors going head to head and yet, the scene falls utterly flat. We crosscut during this cross-examination to Monaghan’s resourceful cop discovering the lair of the new killer, and again, what should be a nerve-shredding sequence is about as thrilling as scrolling through Netflix’s vast library of slop for three hours on a Saturday night before settling on watching Seinfeld again. There is no danger here. No urgency. We’ve no reason to care about these characters. This is a black hole where a film should be.
Depressingly, The Whisper Man is currently the most viewed film on UK Netflix, so the suits at the top will probably consider it a success. Maybe on some level (not artistic or creative) it is a success. But if this is the future of cinema, we should all be very worried indeed. This is utterly inert filmmaking with no artistic merit whatsoever. One of the worst films I’ve ever seen.
