Wire report

The Whisper Man review – Robert De Niro sleepwalks through silly Netflix potboiler

A father and son must team up to find a serial killer in a cheaply made and increasingly uninteresting thriller It’s not as if Robert De Niro ’s choices have improved all that much since the nadir of the mid-2000s (last year did see him crop up in a Scott Eastwood-led actioner and The Alto Knights ) but there’s something specifically rubbishy about his latest that transports us back to that particularly cursed time. The Whisper Man, a film as openly stupid as its title would suggest, could have been released in between the evil clone horror Godsend and imaginary friend thriller Hide and Seek , the kind of bottom-tier project that offers the actor a nice big cheque and the audience a nice little nap. It’s a familiar pile of B-movie schlock – serial killers, missing children, bumps in the night, more imaginary friends – and there is some initial junky fun to be had as we wonder just where

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A father and son must team up to find a serial killer in a cheaply made and increasingly uninteresting thriller It’s not as if Robert De Niro ’s choices have improved all that much since the nadir of the mid-2000s (last year did see him crop up in a Scott Eastwood-led actioner and The Alto Knights ) but there’s something specifically rubbishy about his latest that transports us back to that particularly cursed time. The Whisper Man, a film as openly stupid as its title would suggest, could have been released in between the evil clone horror Godsend and imaginary friend thriller Hide and Seek , the kind of bottom-tier project that offers the actor a nice big cheque and the audience a nice little nap. It’s a familiar pile of B-movie schlock – serial killers, missing children, bumps in the night, more imaginary friends – and there is some initial junky fun to be had as we wonder just where

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According to The Guardian’s source item, The Whisper Man review – Robert De Niro sleepwalks through silly Netflix potboiler, A father and son must team up to find a serial killer in a cheaply made and increasingly uninteresting thriller It’s not as if Robert De Niro ’s choices have improved all that much since the nadir of the mid-2000s (last year did see him crop up in a Scott Eastwood-led actioner and The Alto Knights ) but there’s something specifically rubbishy about his latest that transports us back to that particularly cursed time. The Whisper Man, a film as openly stupid as its title would suggest, could have been released in between the evil clone horror Godsend and imaginary friend thriller Hide and Seek , the kind of bottom-tier project that offers the actor a nice big cheque and the audience a nice little nap. It’s a familiar pile of B-movie schlock – serial killers, missing children, bumps in the night, more imaginary friends – and there is some initial junky fun to be had as we wonder just where

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The development sits in VINI’s Culture file for readers following arts, entertainment, fashion, film, music, celebrity, and the business of culture. The original report is linked so readers can check the source account, follow later updates, and compare new coverage against the first published record. The source item is dated 2026-08-28T07:01:50+00:00.

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Primary source: The Whisper Man review – Robert De Niro sleepwalks through silly Netflix potboiler via The Guardian. VINI cites and links the source; it does not reproduce the publisher’s full article text without rights clearance.

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