The Voices

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This movie came up on shuffle in Hulu and I thought.. "a comedy? OK.. never heard of this movie." Few minutes into it I was getting bored and something about the cleanness of everything seemed really off and I was completely missing the humor part. And then.. things got crazy, literally. An accidental(?) stabbing here, beheading there, arguments with the cat and dog.. and suddenly I couldn't stop watching it. *SPOILER* Once I realized this movie was from the point of view of a schizophrenic serial killer with occasional glimpses of what the reality he was actually in were, it was a pretty damn good watch. This movie made me feel confused whether to feel afraid of Ryan's character, sad for him, laugh at him, or root for his victims. This was very entertaining once everything began to unfold. Slow beginning, gripping middle, and a strange, weird ending.

Dark comedy is not an easy genre but it seems they did a good job with this movie. The plot was also awesome, the visuals are beautiful to look at and there seems to be a lot of attention paid to detail. One aspect that I really loved is that almost the entire movie is seen from Jerry's perspective. When he takes pills (to control his delusions), we see the ugly and sad state of his life. When he goes off his meds and starts getting crazier, everything looks chipper and upbeat. Good thing is they can do a mini series and i am sure it will be very good with this plot and the cast. The bad thing is they couldn't fill the movie with enough emotions and they left it skin-deep. I wish they will make a mini series with this, the plot was seriously good it can't be a waste.

This film tries to be way too many things. Ryan from the get-go does not play any sort of average likable Joe. At least from our viewing point it is clear from the start that Ryan is playing one very sick puppy while surrounded by voices, we know all too well are his and his alone, coming from his four legged friends. The synopsis mentions that the story"...takes a sudden, murderous turn..." but, as noted, from the start we know this is one very sick guy. The synopsis also mentions his court appointed shrink and then there are the 'meds' he is not taking. What is lacking is any real story other then a known psycho going psycho. No back story, no character development, no drama, no suspense and so not for me entertaining. Slasher shocks, OK on that one but not enough for this viewer. This was way too close to garish headlines involving the next door neighbor harboring a murderous psycho pastime. There is very little if anything funny in this film. Cat and dog mouthing a deranged killer's words does not reach the funny bone. All in all a dark, humorless, murderous mess.

The movie was bad. It was a highly visual film, but with unlikeable characters, and there was basically no plot other than a guy who's nuts and starts killing people. None of the dialog was particularly clever, and the "talking pets" angle was sorely underused (a missed opportunity) - most of the people in the theater laughed when the extent of the pet's humor was that the cat says the "f" word every so often in a Scottish accent. There was no mystery, suspense or even emotion at any point in the film. No fear of if this guy would get caught, and no involvement in his emotional plight. It all came off like a dull hipster romp, and the people who are praising it are likely just that (hipsters) Add to that that the movie was way too dark, very off-putting even for a dark comedy (there were no laughs, and no scares) a film that doesn't know what it wants to be except that there is a song and dance sequence at the end where all the dead characters sing around and make the audience go home upbeat... the movie tried way too hard and fell flat on it's face. If you're going to see it because of the talking pet angle, it's like 20 minutes of the film. And then Reynolds starts putting people's heads in the fridge and they talk to him, but they really have nothing interesting to say! Performances were fine, but I seriously gave it 2/10 for it's terrible pacing, barely non-existent storytelling and then not succeeding in any of it's genre attempts - be it comedy or horror or psychological character study. This will go direct-to-DVD, there's no way this is going to be picked up for a theatrical unless they did massive re-shoots and actually added things like tension (or a plot) and meaningful dialog... which this was sorely missing

If this review was just about Mr. Whiskers, I'd give it a 10. Sadly, it isn't. I love Ryan Reynolds, so when I came across this, I thought: "Yeay! A Deadpool-like movie." Trust me; it is not. I also LOVE "dark" humor, sarcasm, double-entendre, dry wit ... (you get the picture), so after watching this, I had to really ask myself why it was that I found it so horrifying. All I could come up with is that maybe I wasn't expecting, going in, how dark a dark-comedy this really is. Even towards the end, I kept thinking there was a twist coming that would make it not quite so dark. As such, to me, it was an assault on what I deem to be my not-so-thin-skinned sensibilities. I may be the only one, but I hated it.

While there's sure to be those who find a kind of brilliant mixture of "uber-dark" comedy here it's simply hard to say more will than won't. Perhaps it's the fact that serial killing at the hand of a schizophrenic psychopath whose cat tells him to murder isn't, under any circumstance, funny. The primary vehicle is the meant to be absurd voices from the "good and bad" inner-self as depicted as coming from Jerry's (Ryan Reynolds) cat, Mr. Whiskers, and dog, Bosco. This is how Jerry's mental illness is personified. And, yes, it could be funny…but, it falls flat against the murdering which ensues. The movie builds Jerry into a person we want to believe doesn't want to kill because he's shown as likable and wanting to be a person with meaningful relationships who contributes to society. But, even with a sad sack back-story his character can't achieve any kind of sympathy to soften up the viewer to actually relax and laugh. In the final analysis the comedy doesn't pull it's intended hat-trick of making the truly disturbing behavior funny…as if it was forcing a kind of hard sale that a "bright" off-center crazed caricature of a killer was both arty and comedic. No sale here. Ryan Reynolds needs a reboot alright as even with his solid performance (the writing is the problem) this is just a bad movie that reaches for Avant-Gardie dark comedy originality only to be disturbingly offensive. If there's something funny about a schizophrenic serial killer (the intended outcome?) The Voices never got there.

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