2 out of 5

Directed by: Marjane Satrapi

So ‘Buried’ happened some years ago, and it was quite an amazing turn for Reynolds, proving that his snippy mugging (not an insult – that’s just sort of generally how he’s used, even when playing the beefy guy in a movie like ‘Blade Trinity’) could be put on hold and some impressive acting abilities triggered given the right script.  Recently, Reynolds has been doing the indie movie shuffle, begging a comparison to Chris Evans, who made the turn toward the same a few years back.  Unfortunately, whereas Evans has proven (in my eyes) a bit more flexible in terms of what he can do with a film, it does seem like Reynolds needs to be paired with material and a director that might lift him up to a certain level.  And ‘The Voices’ isn’t that movie, content to fall back on the actor’s mugging for its over-obvious execution.  The interesting premise for the film – that Jerry (Reynolds) should be taking medication to tone down some mental issues which cause him to hear voices, and decides that life is better with the voices – is shuttled over within the first twenty minutes or so in favor of pursuing a ‘dark comedy’ plot that feels like it takes its definition of the genre from fifteen years ago, as the initial twist toward darkness is unsurprising, unconvincing, and ends up feeling like a poor attempt at fleshing out some visual ideas for a full length film.  The titular voices that Jerry hears mostly come from his dog and cat, and this, along with the cheery juxtaposition of medicated Jerry versus the real, muted world, is what’s played up for comedy, and while I appreciate the idea of having Reynolds voice the dog and cat, there was something off about the voice-work that never sold them as “characters,” (perhaps, again, because it all felt like it was more played for chuckles) and there’s some interesting set design of Jerry’s medicined vs. non-medicined apartment that really deserved to be woven more into things as opposed to, literally, set dressing.  ‘The Voices’ isn’t lazy, it just seems unaware that this style of film has been done before, and so ends up never being too grabbing, without a script or sense of presentation to really make it unique.