I don’t have to whisper to tell you to skip this dumb murder mystery.

Maybe there could be something to look for in the new Netflix’s crime thriller “The Whisper Man” if Robert De Niro is the leading man. Other than his “Zero Day” series, this is the two time Oscar winner’s first movie on the streaming site since “The Irishman,” but it’s inferior to that gem.And it’s a shame in the role of a retired detective and estranged father, he just isn’t convincing.

It’s based on Alex North’s book about a child abduction, and it makes me realize that there have been sharper, wiser, and more consistent movies about the subject like “Prisoners,” “Gone Baby Gone,” and “Changeling.” They all speak with the right convictions, and have us thinking about the reality of everything in the respective cases. This one feels more like a series on NBC, than on Netflix. The kind in which feels too campy and cynical to really test our senses.

Adam Scott plays a dad and widow crime novelist named Tom, who relocates his son Jake (Acston Luca Porto) to a new home in New Jersey (and yes, I checked. It was filmed in the state I live in), following his wife’s death. I guess it’s an unwritten rule that the parents have to think their child is making up an imaginary friend. That nearly applies to Jake, who is talking to somebody, and it may be a little girl in some kind of supernatural form. And if this is a ghost, then it leads up to a predictable and idiotic conclusion.

But here’s the thing. Michelle Monaghan plays the detective Amanda Beck trying to crack a case regarding a missing child who disappeared about two hours after his grandmother tucked him in. In fact, he may be one of the many unfortunate victims of a serial killer known as the Whisper Man. He records his victims’ conversations on tape, and he also cuts their fingernails, so they can’t leave scratch marks on his face when he murders them.

And after Tom thought Jake was talking to himself, the boy disappears in the rainy night. That’s when he meets Amanda, and that’s when he turns to his estranged retired detective father Pete (De Niro) for help. He comments to him that he is a great detective, but a bad father, which has him acting like a man child. The old man tries to reconnect with his son during the investigation, but Tom keeps telling him he needs to focus more on finding Jake. But you know these people. They always eventually have a scene talking about their past.

The best moments, to me, regard Michael Keaton as a convicted murderer, whom Pete and Amanda interrogate as part of their investigation. I think he has the age and dialogue to draw us into what his character sees in his evil life and what it unfolds for the Whisper Man. And Scott, who was last seem in the exhilarating “Hokum,” does some good work playing a father who also has a drinking and anger problem, which nearly affects his wellbeing in the investigation. But if you ask me, I think John Cho handled some of the accusations against those who may have kidnapped his missing daughter a lot better and more well-acted in “Searching.”

Directed by James Ashcroft (“The Rule of Jenny Pen”) and produced by the Russo brothers, “The Whisper Man” is disappointing in the ways it promises us great talents like De Niro, Monaghan, and Scott in the poster, but doesn’t promise us anything else. The case is handled in such a perfunctory and dull way, that we can barely acknowledge the connection between what this Whisper Man has been engaging through the years. Is it the same man or is there a legacy character like the Ghostface killer in the “Scream” movies? If you do ignore my advice and watch this movie, you tell me.

Now Streaming on Netflix