“Son, I’m sorry it took this for us to get together,” Pete (Robert De Niro) tells his estranged son Tom (Adam Scott) in the new trailer. Whisper Man, an upcoming thriller based on the novel by Alex North.
“We’re not together,” Tom replies. “This is me asking you for help.”
Right now Tom needs a lot of help. His own son Jake (Axton Luca Porto) has been kidnapped by a ruthless serial killer known as the Whisperer Man; Pete, a retired police detective, caught a killer over ten years ago. Jake’s kidnapping is horrific in itself, but it’s also complicated by a disturbing fact: The Whisper Man, aka Frank Carter, has been in prison since his capture. He can’t be the one committing these crimes… so who? Pete is determined to find out with the help of detective Amanda Beck (Golden Globe nominee Michelle Monaghan).
The filmmakers invited two-time Oscar winner De Niro to play the role of the grizzled police veteran. “For an ingénue, he does a great job,” director James Ashcroft (Returning home in the dark) jokes. “Pete as a character is very quiet, but there’s always a lot going on and the wheels are always turning. He’s thinking about how to deal with this crime as an ex-detective, but also how to deal with this broken relationship and rebuild his relationship with his son.”
That will depend on his son, who will be brought to life by Golden Globe nominee Scott. “Adam Scott can do no wrong,” says Ashcroft. “He exudes kindness and energy, especially since his character is under so much pressure and duress due to the situation with (his) son and his broken relationship with (De Niro’s) character.”
Ashcroft realized as soon as he read North’s best-selling book that these intense emotional dynamics were at the heart of this heartbreaking story. “Despite the genre and trappings of a serial killer thriller, it was the characters and the father-son relationship portrayed throughout the story that really got me into it,” he tells Tudum. “I think Alex does it incredibly well. It was compelling.”
North wrote Whisper Man when his own son was about the same age as Jake; Even as he told a chilling tale of murder and mystery, the author kept returning to the relationships between fathers and sons.
“As a parent, you worry about what you’re going to pass on to your child,” North Tudumu says. “What is being transmitted? What is good? What is bad? Everything is a reaction to what came before. How does it end when people approach it a certain way?”
You’ll have to see Whisper Man to find out. The new film will be released on Netflix on August 28.