Amazon Prime has become a great place to find quirky, cult-y movies of varying budgets from different eras, some of which are buried treasures. "The Voices" is definitely quirky as it straddles the line between ghastly horror and campy humor, but doesn't quite a achieve cult status despite how hard it, or director Marjane Satrapi try to please.
The plot concerns goofy and amiable Jerry (played by the likable Ryan Reynolds, who appears to be having more fun than we are) who we find out very quickly has some problems with his mental health. He lives in a day-glo world despite his lowly employment and lives with two animal companions who seem to be able to speak to him in his own voice, but with funny accents. These are the best parts of the film and almost elevate it to the goal it was striving for--had the writer and director been disciplined enough to really explore the interior landscape of a serial killer this might have been a dark, but fun journey into the mind of a psychopath who you find yourself inexplicably rooting for despite his horrendous mis-deeds.
Unfortunately the tone shifts drastically when Jerry starts interacting with the women in his office, and the film becomes a fairly standard "will justice catch up to the killer or not?" would-be suspense film.
The performances, particularly by Gemma Arterton, Anna Kendrick and Jacki Weaver are so good you wish these actors were in another movie (and maybe they thought they were). The scenes with Jerry's foul-mouthed Scottish cat and slow-but-steady Southern dog are brilliant; well shot, funny and creepy all at once. The anti-spetic tone of Jerry's mental state in contrast with the reality we're giving brief glimpses of is chilling and thought-provoking.
Where the film stumbles is the hubris of its creators ignoring years of film and story development and trying, like an enthusiastic new film school student, to see if it's possible to create an entertaining story with a central character who is almost impossible to empathize with. It can be done..."Psycho" is probably the best example, "Citizen Kane" qualifies, "The Last Seduction" ...more recently, anything done by Todd Solondz, although that's just my personal opinion since I like his films...But the truth is, it's very difficult to pull this sort of story off, and questionable as to why anyone would try.
Here we have a film that revels in the mistreatment of women as entertainment; we're shown graphic images of women being cut up and terrorized and there's absolutely no "payoff" other than some smug "wink wink" humor with talking post-mortem heads; the women are barely even grieved let alone considered well-rounded human beings. All of this is shown from the point of view of our pro/an-tagonist, who ultimately can't be considered empathetic if you have any human decency or morals. So you're left with no one to care about, at which point the film becomes a study of psychosis in general; this worked well in David Cronenberg's "Crash" but this film doesn't have the conviction of its anti-morals that one had.
Instead we get a "comedy" that contains close-ups of excrement, graphic depictions of gore, violence against women and what appears to be actual depictions of animals copulating and killing on screen, tee hee. Adding further insult to injury, there's a tasteless, tacked-on "Austin Powers"-ish musical number for the end credits that tries to suggest everything we've seen was all in fun. This kind of sardonic humor worked well in a movie like "All That Jazz," but this film just hasn't earned the right to that kind of well-thought-out cynicism, nor has it played by the rules of its own attempt (and almost success) at creating a sense of madness.
In the end "The Voices" is trying very hard, like the lead character who is in nearly every scene, to get our attention and be liked, any way it can...by being shocking, offensive, derivative, immature, or simply not going away (the movie is over 90 minutes long). Surprisingly, what it did best for me was send me to IMDb about halfway through to start composing a review.
The plot concerns goofy and amiable Jerry (played by the likable Ryan Reynolds, who appears to be having more fun than we are) who we find out very quickly has some problems with his mental health. He lives in a day-glo world despite his lowly employment and lives with two animal companions who seem to be able to speak to him in his own voice, but with funny accents. These are the best parts of the film and almost elevate it to the goal it was striving for--had the writer and director been disciplined enough to really explore the interior landscape of a serial killer this might have been a dark, but fun journey into the mind of a psychopath who you find yourself inexplicably rooting for despite his horrendous mis-deeds.
Unfortunately the tone shifts drastically when Jerry starts interacting with the women in his office, and the film becomes a fairly standard "will justice catch up to the killer or not?" would-be suspense film.
The performances, particularly by Gemma Arterton, Anna Kendrick and Jacki Weaver are so good you wish these actors were in another movie (and maybe they thought they were). The scenes with Jerry's foul-mouthed Scottish cat and slow-but-steady Southern dog are brilliant; well shot, funny and creepy all at once. The anti-spetic tone of Jerry's mental state in contrast with the reality we're giving brief glimpses of is chilling and thought-provoking.
Where the film stumbles is the hubris of its creators ignoring years of film and story development and trying, like an enthusiastic new film school student, to see if it's possible to create an entertaining story with a central character who is almost impossible to empathize with. It can be done..."Psycho" is probably the best example, "Citizen Kane" qualifies, "The Last Seduction" ...more recently, anything done by Todd Solondz, although that's just my personal opinion since I like his films...But the truth is, it's very difficult to pull this sort of story off, and questionable as to why anyone would try.
Here we have a film that revels in the mistreatment of women as entertainment; we're shown graphic images of women being cut up and terrorized and there's absolutely no "payoff" other than some smug "wink wink" humor with talking post-mortem heads; the women are barely even grieved let alone considered well-rounded human beings. All of this is shown from the point of view of our pro/an-tagonist, who ultimately can't be considered empathetic if you have any human decency or morals. So you're left with no one to care about, at which point the film becomes a study of psychosis in general; this worked well in David Cronenberg's "Crash" but this film doesn't have the conviction of its anti-morals that one had.
Instead we get a "comedy" that contains close-ups of excrement, graphic depictions of gore, violence against women and what appears to be actual depictions of animals copulating and killing on screen, tee hee. Adding further insult to injury, there's a tasteless, tacked-on "Austin Powers"-ish musical number for the end credits that tries to suggest everything we've seen was all in fun. This kind of sardonic humor worked well in a movie like "All That Jazz," but this film just hasn't earned the right to that kind of well-thought-out cynicism, nor has it played by the rules of its own attempt (and almost success) at creating a sense of madness.
In the end "The Voices" is trying very hard, like the lead character who is in nearly every scene, to get our attention and be liked, any way it can...by being shocking, offensive, derivative, immature, or simply not going away (the movie is over 90 minutes long). Surprisingly, what it did best for me was send me to IMDb about halfway through to start composing a review.