The Night Listener

This film version of Armistead Maupin's international bestseller, The Night Listener, is a slow-moving, credibility-challenged psychological thriller that is neither psychological, nor remotely thrilling. Once again, Robin Williams turns off the rat-a-tat comedy and turns in a dreary, low-key performance. He plays a radio host who gets intensely involved in the life a young listener (Rory Culkin). When questions arise about the boy's true identity, Williams turns private eye. Toni Collette, playing the boy's adoptive mother, has been down this path before in the more eventful The Sixth Sense and is the only cast member who seems to know her way around the material. Early reviews compare this to Hitchcock, but Hitch was never this obvious. Even at less than 90 minutes, this is a drawn-out, butt-numbing sit.