A film review by Craig J. Koban December 8, 2023

HYPNOTIC

2023, R, 93 mins.

Ben Affleck as Daniel Rourke  /  Alice Braga as Diana Cruz  /  William Fichtner as Liv Del Rayne  /  J. D. Pardo as Nicks  /  Hala Finley as Dominique Rourke  /  Jackie Earle Haley as Jeremiah  /  Kelly Frye as Vivian  /  Melanie Hawkins as Emily  /  Derek Russo as Tiny  /  Bonnie Discepolo

Robert Rodriguez's HYPNOTIC plays an awful lot like Christopher Nolan for dummies as far as the mind-bending sci-fi thriller genre is concerned.  

Its story - also co-scripted by the director and an apparent passion project for the last twenty years - involves a Texas-based police officer that uncovers a vast society of mind-controlling criminals.  I think that the film's overall premise is modestly intriguing, but as its story progresses it's sure hard to ignore how it's basically a weird and mostly uninspired hodgepodge of far better and more memorable genre efforts (imagine ingredients being pilfered from films like INCEPTION, FIRESTARTER, TOTAL RECALL, THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU, and THE MATRIX and you kind of get the idea).  There's something undeniably fast and loose about HYPNOTIC (which has a lot to do with Rodriquez's penchant for thinking-on-his-feet directorial know-how) and it's never a boring watch, but the overall end result is clunky, uninspired, and decidedly low on thrills.  

That, and star Ben Affleck is mostly comatose throughout and never seems fully invested in the story that he occupies.  If the Sad Affleck meme was adapted into film, then this would be the end result.     

Affleck plays detective named Danny Rourke, who has been struggling to process the disappearance of his daughter Minnie.  She was kidnapped during a routine visit to a park and has never been heard from since.  He's going through therapy to heal himself, but this traumatic ordeal has essentially ruined him and his marriage.  At the beginning of the film, he and his partner Nicks (JD Pardo) are investigating a rather weird crime that has occurred at a bank, which involves a mysterious crook named Dellrayne (William Fichtner) being able to get anyone that he comes in contact with to do his bidding by the smallest of verbal suggestion (kind of like a Jedi mind trick).  Dellrayne manages to escape the bank, but in the process has a brief encounter with Danny, during which time he provides a photo of Minnie to Danny and suggests that he knows what has happened to her.  In a fit of desperation, Danny seeks out some rather unorthodox means to get to the bottom of what Dellrayne's true end game is, like seeking out the advice of a psychic, Diana (Alice Braga).  She very quickly reveals to Danny the truth about Dellrayne - he's actually a part of a vast network of "hypnotics," or powerful beings whose mind control powers are so potent that they can manipulate the reality of any victim they chose to get what they want...perhaps even including Danny's daughter.

But wait!  There's more. 

Diana is also - wouldn't ya know it! - a hypnotic as well, and she quickly proves her unique abilities to an initially skeptical Danny.  It's pretty clear to him that she's no mere fraud, nor is she some sort of petty dime store trickster.  With her as his new partner, Danny begins to comb through the criminal underworld of Austin in order to get answers as to Minnie's whereabouts, and along the way - and the deeper he progress on the hunt - it appears that Dellrayne is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how far this hypnotic rabbit hole really goes.  That, and Danny soon realizes that he has some sort of unexplained ability to form a "psychic block" that manages to keep Dellrayne away from fully controlling him.  

Hmmmm...  

Rodriquez manages to infuse some clever moments in HYPNOTIC, especially during a few key chase sequences (like one set at a rail yard) that definitely gets the proverbial juices flowing.  He also uses VFX and distorted camera lenses to help distinguish the difference between the real world and that of those under a hypnotic's spell (there have been so many films in the past about having one version of reality pinch hitting for the real thing that it's easy to lose count, but HYPNOYTIC - to its credit - tries to navigate it and the various stages of delirium that its characters face with some visual panache).  Even when some of the effects are not entirely convincing, Rodriquez manages to find ways to drum up genuine suspense in smaller and arguably more satisfying ways, like a real humdinger of a scene that involves a momentarily mind-possessed Danny that almost commits murder with a pair of scissors.  It's not a flashy or big sequence, but it works well on its own reserved terms. Sometimes, less is more when it comes to what works and what doesn't in HYPNOTIC.

Speaking of less, what this film really, really could have used less of was endlessly contrived and stilted expositional dialogue passages involving characters explaining hypnotics and their powers over and over...and over again.  Some of the statements hilariously make the film feel like it was written on pure A.I. autopilot, like many having Affleck's shocked detective saying things like "Hypnotics did all of this?!"  Well...yeah...no shit, Danny.  Then they're groan inducing explanations of the most dull kind, like Diana informing Danny (and us) that "Hypnotics have abilities far beyond anything we have a name for!"  Well...there is a name for them...hypnotics!  When Danny discovers his newly acquired ability to keep Dellrayne mentally at bay, Diana boasts, "You have a psychic block ability, detective.  A hypnotic's worst nightmare!"  Wow.  Affleck and Braga are wonderful actors, to be sure, but hearing them utter cookie cutter lines line these was cringy and ear-straining.  And when they're not making wooden proclamations, they're spending the rest of the film engaging in Q & A sessions about the world of hynotics and their extraordinary abilities.  For a film that's barely over 90 minutes,  HYPNOTIC is aggressively and laughably dialogue heavy and leads to it feeling an hour longer as a result. 

And poor Affleck.  He's in pure paycheck mode here in a largely inert and one note performance.  He's mostly grumpy and gravel voiced throughout, which I guess maybe suits the type of hard-boiled detective mode he's trying to mimic here, but the end results are kind of flat-footed.  I would rarely say that Affleck is a charisma black hole in any film, but he's just mentally checked out throughout much of HYPNOTIC's running time.  He also doesn't have much in the way of decent chemistry with Braga either, the latter of whom is saddled with providing much of the screenplay's aforementioned explanation-heavy dialogue, which makes her character more of a plot device than a flesh and blood person.  Another key issue intertwined into this is the fact that HYPNOTIC wants to keep audiences guessing throughout about character motivations and shifting allegiances until we get to the unavoidably would-be large plot twist that attempts to explain everyone and everything.  As a cerebral mind-bending thriller, HYPNOTIC fails in both the mind-bending plot mechanizations and on a level of sustained suspense.  I honestly believe that Rodriguez is aiming for a Nolan-esque jigsaw puzzle approach to storytelling here when it comes to the nature of reality and unreality, but he doesn't quite have the same skills to pull something like that off.  Because I grew to care less and less about the characters in HYPNOTIC as it progressed, it all but rendered the stakes null and void.  The puzzles and secrets that Rodriguez was trying to spin here ultimately didn't have much of a sense of urgency or pathos.  

And, again, let's face it - there's nothing in HYPNOTIC that other films and works by far more creative minds like Nolan, Stephen King and Phillip K. Dyck haven't drummed up before to far greater impact.  I never found Rodriguez's film dead on arrival (it has too much eager willingness to please to make it thoroughly boring, and it has an inherent outlandishness that makes some it guilty pleasure material), but it comes off as too haphazardly put together for my tastes (and coming after his very underrated ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL - that he made with producer and writer James Cameron -  this one is a serious qualitative step down for him).  Overall, I just didn't find this film compelling or tension-filled considering its high concept - but highly derivative - premise and ideas.  This film was also all but forgotten when it had a very unceremonious theatrical release back in the spring (after a borderline non-existent marketing campaign and lack of promotion by any of the film's stars) and heavily bombed, making just $15 million against its near $70 million price tag.  The film also had the worst opening weekend gross for any film either directed by Rodriguez or starring Affleck...ever.  That's telling.  There's nothing dazzling about this psychological thriller; it lingers on the screen until it fades out to the end credits, leaving viewers confusingly throwing up their hands and incredulously asking, "That's it?"   

The best mind trick that HYPNOTIC plays is making those that have just watched it instantly forget its existence while leaving the cinema.  

That's an ability far beyond anything we have a name for!!!