‘Hypnotic’ Review
Stars: Ben Affleck, Alice Braga, William Fichtner, JD Pardo, Jeff Fahey, Sandy Avila, Hala Finley, Ionie Nieves, Nikki Dixon | Written by Robert Rodriguez, Max Borenstein | Directed by Robert Rodriguez
Ben Affleck stars in this mind-bending sci-fi thriller from co-writer / director (and co-cinematographer / editor) Robert Rodriguez. Essentially ripping off Inception, only on a fraction of that film’s budget, it’s a fast-paced rug-puller that’s almost gleefully nonsensical. In a good way.
Affleck plays Detective Rourke, who’s introduced getting hypnosis therapy, because he isn’t over the trauma of his losing his young daughter Minnie (Ionie Nieves) after she was kidnapped from a playground when he looked away for a second. A period of time has passed and Minnie’s body has never been found, so when Rourke finds a photo of her while investigating a mysterious bank robbery case, he becomes convinced that the culprit, Dellrayne (William Fichtner), knows her whereabouts.
Things quickly get weirder, as the case leads Rourke to a psychic named Diana (Alice Braga) and she informs him that Dellrayne is a powerful hypnotic, able to control people’s minds by re-shaping their reality and making them believe whatever he wants them to believe. Soon, Dellrayne has turned multiple civilians against Rourke – including his own colleagues – and he and Diana find their lives in danger at every turn.
Affleck puts his square-jawed charisma to good use as Rourke, with Rodriguez wisely not taxing him with too much in the way of showing emotion, despite his lost daughter trauma. Braga is equally good as the psychic who may know more than she’s letting on, and there’s strong support from Fichtner, who’s clearly enjoying himself as the enigmatic, seemingly all-powerful villain.
Rodriguez’s sense of pace is impeccable, and he keeps everything moving at just the right speed to ensure that the audience doesn’t have time to question any of the increasingly ridiculous plot details until the movie is over. He also pulls off some enjoyable suspense scenes (watch out for a Hitchcock-homaging pair of scissors) and action sequences, some of which cheerfully rip off the world-folding-in-on-itself special effects from Inception, which is, of course, entirely appropriate for a film with a villain who can re-shape reality.
Without giving too much away, Hypnotic is one of those movies where the less you know going in, the better, as the screenplay positively delights in delivering rug-pull after rug-pull. In fairness, genre-savvy audiences will likely be a step or two ahead of the movie at some point, but rest assured, it will catch you up and overtake you by the end. It’s also worth noting – as cryptically as possible – that the film makes an amusingly explicit connection between “hypnotic constructs” (the name for all the reality-re-shaping) and the process of filmmaking itself, to the point where you half expect someone to turn to the audience and say “What is cinema, if not a hypnotic construct? Hmmm?”
In short, if you’re prepared to accept its inherent ridiculousness, Hypnotic is enjoyable nonsense from beginning to end, played commendably straight throughout. Oh, and stick around for a mid-credits sting that slips in a final sequel-teasing rug-pull just for the hell of it.
*** 3/5
Hypnotic is in cinemas now.
