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Robin Williams bring a subtle urgency to The Night Listener, which helps evoke the same feeling that Bruce Willis did in The Sixth Sense. And much like The Sixth Sense, The Night Listener is about the relationship that forms between a man and a young boy.

The Night Listener is based on a 2000 novel by Armistead Maupin. In the film, Williams plays late-night talk show radio host Gabriel Noone, who is a gay man who was just recently dumped by his longtime live-in lover, Jess (played by Bobby Cannavale).When a friend in publishing (Joe Morton) gives Noone a manuscript writer by Peter Logand (played by Rory Culkin), a 14-year-old boy in Wisconsin who has HIV, Noone is intrigued and takes the boy under his wing via telephone conversations.

It seems that Logand suffered barbaric abuse at the hands of his pedophile parents, and his memoir is both tragic and touching. During a series of long-distance telephone calls, Peter shares things with Noone. Things like the fact that his stepmother, Donna (played by Toni Collette), is extremely protective of him. And when Noone speaks to Donna, he learns that Peter is getting sicker every day.

Soon, Noone begins to doubt Peter and Donna’s honesty, and he even goes so far as to travel to Wisconsin to get to the bottom of things. I don’t want to spoil the plot for you, so I will leave it at that, but suffice to say it’s a well-thought-out, well-acted twist that will leave most viewers satisfied.

The film is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with audio in Dolby Digital 5.1, and subtitles available in English, Spanish and French. Extras include The Night Listener Revealed, a featurette with interviews of Maupin, co-screenwriter Terry Anderson, Williams and various producers. There’s also a deleted scene, with opening commentary by Stettner.At the hands of director Patrick Stettner and cinematographer Lisa Rinzler, plus the musical score from Peter Nashel, The Night Listener is creepy and chilling, but not overtly so.

There is no blood shed, and there are no monsters. Instead, the film focuses on human psychology, and why people are so quick to believe everything they are told.