Title – The Voices (2014)

Director – Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis)

Cast – Ryan Reynolds, Anna Kendrick, Jacki Weaver, Gemma Arterton

Plot – Finding solace in conversations with his two pets Mr. Whiskers and Bosco, off-kilter Jerry (Reynolds) finds his life getting a little more sinister when he discovers he has a crush on fellow factory worker Fiona (Arterton) and is pursued by kindly colleague Lisa (Kendrick).

“Wish I could help you Jerry… uuh, but I’m just a fish”

Review by Eddie on 18/12/2015

Some movies just have that “wow” factor, that little something that makes your jaw drop and your mind race. It’s a rare thing for movies in this day and age to have that extra special something which makes the Voices an extraordinary feat as it has an abundance of “wow” moments with one little problem, there the wrong kind of wow moments!

An incredibly inept mix of dark comedy and out right lunacy, that the Voices was even made is a wow enough moment, as its tonal shifts between a wannabe funny and violent journey into the mind of Ryan Reynolds annoyingly scattered Jerry and some strange kind of horror fable are totally misjudged.

Once listed as one of the great un-made scripts floating around Hollywood in the famed Black List announcements, the Voices quite clearly at one stage led a life of much potential and promise but the finished product as directed by Persepolis filmmaker Marjane Satrapi is just not in any way shape or form a good film and is yet another poor decision by Ryan Reynolds that continues his ability to put his name to dire projects even though he gives it his all here.

Reynolds Jerry is a downright nasty little man and someone we as an audience just can’t in any way, shape or form warm to. His transformation from creepy yet in an off-putting way pleasant factory worker to crazed murderer who likes to keep the heads of his victims in his fridge is a bizarre and seedy trip made worse by his interactions with his creepy pets Bosco the dog and Mr. Whiskers the evil cat.

The major selling point to the film is that these pets lead poor old Jerry down an increasingly murky path but all we get is a lot of foul mouthed rants and weird conversations that don’t in anyway make the film a better experience and they feel in the end underutilised and uneven much like the fact that for some reason Gemma Arterton’s Fiona and Anna Kendrick’s Lisa would even bother to give deranged Jerry the time of day let alone spend time alone with him.

Reynolds gives this film his all and at times he almost makes the films weirdness work (even voicing the animals of the tale) yet The Voices is a seriously misguided and dull affair that is all at once creepy, unlikeable and most tellingly neither funny or scary and is saved somewhat by one of the better end credits sequences in some time. An out and out misfire, it’s hard to know why anyone here bothered especially Satrapi who on the back of Persepolis should know a thing or two about making a decent film.

1 misused Tupperware container out of 5