‘Hypnotic’: Review

Dir: Robert Rodriguez. US. 2023. 93mins

The twists never stop in Hypnotic, a pulpy thriller which relishes its B-movie trappings but does not offer much beyond them. Director and co-writer Robert Rodriguez sends a despondent detective on a mind-bending journey to find his abducted daughter, quickly discovering that her disappearance is connected to a disturbing revelation about the nature of reality itself. Ben Affleck gives an agreeably growly performance, aided by Alice Braga as an alluring psychic whose powers hint at the film’s eventual drift towards a mash-up of Alfred Hitchcock and Christopher Nolan. But Hypnotic’s funhouse spirit eventually dissipates as it becomes clear that Rodriguez is mostly stealing from better pictures, never fusing them into a captivating new whole.

Rodriguez leans into the ludicrousness, encouraging viewers to embrace his film as pleasurable escapism. 

Playing as a Midnight Screening at this year’s Cannes, Hypnotic first opens in the US on May 12 before arriving in the UK two weeks later. Affleck’s star wattage will boost visibility, but making a mark may prove troublesome at a time when beefier blockbusters are muscling their way into multiplexes. 

Danny (Affleck), an Austin detective, has yet to forgive himself for letting his daughter briefly out of his sight, resulting in her being kidnapped. Divorced and depressed, he clings to his job for some sense of stability. While trying to stop a bank robbery, Danny encounters Dellrayne (William Fichtner), a mysterious man who is inexplicably able to control people’s minds. Danny believes Dellrayne holds the key to his daughter’s whereabouts and seeks the help of Diana (Braga), a fortune teller who tells him she is actually a hypnotic — someone who, like Dellrayne, can bend people to her will. Strangely, though, her powers have no effect on Danny.

Rodriguez, who last made the 2020 family film We Can Be Heroes, often approaches genres with mischievous enthusiasm, embracing both their crowd-pleasing elements and shameless cliches. That tendency holds true for Hypnotic, which contains traces of the whodunnit, the trippy sci-fi drama and the action film. Holding it all together is Affleck, who plays Danny with a Bogart-like tough-guy melancholy, his voice rarely rising above a manly whisper as he begins to understand the world of hypnotics and takes on dangers he has never previously encountered. (Cleverly, Dellrayne can command innocent bystanders to attack Danny and Diana in public, and the pair are never safe as long as Dellrayne is nearby.) 

With more than a few hints of Inception — not to mention Nolan’s fondness for creating relatively realistic worlds in which fantastical things happen — Hypnotic aspires to mimic the sort of grownup thriller masterminded by Hitchcock. Unfortunately, Rodriguez (who also edited and serves as one of the two cinematographers) fails to generate much tension between Danny and Diana, sexual or otherwise, with the film more interested in its relentless narrative than the quieter moments where a spark could start between the leads. In short order, Danny will unravel different mysteries about hypnotics — and why they are unable to control him — as Rodriguez enjoys trying to shock his audience every 20 minutes or so with these reveals. Some of these twists are niftily executed but, despite Danny’s grief over his missing child, Hypnotic isn’t especially emotional, so the story’s surprises end up feeling more mechanical than resonant.

This is not to discount the film’s modest charms. Fichtner is a veteran character actor who has portrayed myriad bad guys, but rarely one who is so menacing despite such little screen time. And although this moderately-budgeted picture doesn’t have the financial resources of top-flight event films, Hypnotic manages a few decent action sequences illustrative of Rodriguez’s penchant for energetically designed set pieces. As Hypnotic’s twists unspool and grow increasingly preposterous, the director leans into the ludicrousness, encouraging viewers to embrace his film as pleasurable escapism. 

That brio would be easier to appreciate if Rodriguez had bolder ideas or deeper themes to buttress his story. Savvy audiences will be able to spot many films he is borrowing from, but the homage is not electrifying. Instead, there’s a second-rate quality to Hypnotic, the derivativeness mostly a reminder of the ingenuity displayed in those earlier pictures. The film ponders the terrifying possibilities of what would happen if mind-control was a reality, but fails to put us under its spell.