Netflix Thriller Whisper Man Ranks as Number One on Streaming

Psychological thrillers have a particular way of getting under your skin. The best serial-killer movies do not just ask whether detectives will catch the killer. They make you wonder what kind of mind could commit such horrific crimes in the first place.

The Silence of the Lambs set the standard, starring Anthony Hopkins as the cannibalistic psychopath Hannibal Lecter. Then came films with star-studded casts like Se7en, which gave audiences another fictional monster in Kevin Spacey’s John Doe, and Zodiac, which took a different approach by dramatizing the real-life investigation into the still-unidentified Zodiac Killer.

Audiences clearly have not lost their appetite for these kinds of stories. The continued popularity of thrillers and true crime documentaries suggests there is still something irresistible about watching investigators piece together the clues behind a seemingly unknowable killer. Netflix has a new addition to the genre, and it is already proving to be a massive hit.

That new addition is The Whisper Man, Netflix’s latest psychological crime thriller starring Robert De Niro, Adam Scott, and Michelle Monaghan. According to FlixPatrol, The Whisper Man is currently the No. 1 movie on Netflix worldwide, as well as the No. 1 movie in the U.S., just days after its Aug. 28 release.

What is The Whisper Man about?

Based on Alex North’s bestselling 2019 novel of the same name, The Whisper Man follows Tom Kennedy (Adam Scott), a widowed crime writer whose life is upended when his 8-year-old son, Jake, is abducted. Desperate to find him, Tom turns to his estranged father, retired detective Pete Willis (Robert De Niro), who once caught a notorious serial killer known as the Whisper Man.

When the new kidnapping begins to resemble the killer’s decades-old crimes, Detective Amanda Beck (Michelle Monaghan) joins the investigation, forcing Pete to confront the case that defined his career. Michael Keaton also stars as Frank Carter, the original Whisper Man, with Owen Teague and Hamish Linklater rounding out the ensemble.

Directed by James Ashcroft, the movie is designed as a throwback to the serial-killer thrillers that dominated the 1990s, embracing the familiar formula of a determined detective, a terrifying killer, and a mystery stretching back decades.

Critics have been more divided than Netflix viewers appear to be. The Whisper Man currently has a 42% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, with reviews praising its creepy atmosphere and performances while criticizing its familiar plot and reliance on genre conventions.

Collider’s David Caballero called it a solid and extremely eerie throwback to ’90s serial-killer movies, writing that the film does not reinvent the formula but still makes for an engaging thriller.

Source: Polygon