THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS.
by Jarrod Jones. Hypnotic is an all-is-not-what-it-seems movie made with a sharp eye for detail and dorky early-Aughts energy. So it shouldn’t be too surprising that the film, which was written in 2002 and feels like it, is directed by Robert Rodriguez, the indie action maestro of El Mariachi and Planet Terror and those bubbly Spy Kids movies. Barring a shotgun-toting Jeff Fahey cameo and a jokey nod to Desperado, you could have fooled me.
The movie is rated R, but it’s one of the softer Rs I’ve seen in a while. There are a couple of swift bullet-to-the-head shots, and there’s a bit where Rodriguez keeps cutting away from a gory handcuff escape attempt. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 had more shocking stuff in it. There’s the implication of sex between its stars, Ben Affleck and Alice Braga, but their chemistry is strictly professional; a stage play smooch. Hypnotic feels like it was being cut for a PG-13 release until last week, and while that doesn’t knock points from the film, it does say something about how Rodriguez has tempered his zeal for rambunctiousness.
Chalk that up to maturation, I guess. Hypnotic is selling itself as a thinking guy’s mindbender like Inception or Total Recall, but it keeps fumbling to match those films’ corkscrew twists and visual trickery. It scrambles to stay one or two steps ahead of us. When Hypnotic starts tossing exposition around — and boy, does it do a lot of that — it’s your perfunctory hand-wringing over nebulous forces who control things behind the scenes. People say stuff like “hack the database” a lot, which I found both charming and tiresome. Its villain, played by William Fichtner, is purportedly bad news, but his half-lidded performance indicates that Hypnotic might be putting him to sleep, too.
So why are we here? We watch these kinds of puzzles to have our brains toyed with, test our smarts, and maybe have some fun. The first big twist in Hypnotic is sharp and justifies how clunky its first half-hour is, where the film powers through a by-the-numbers set-up. Affleck plays Danny Rourke, a jaded police detective haunted by the unsolved kidnapping of his young daughter. His latest case involves Fichtner, who can mesmerize strangers into doing his bidding through eye contact and speaking in code, and it’s implied that he may have something to do with Danny’s dilemma. After a killer bank heist sequence that includes a rooftop showdown and an armored truck crash, Danny pairs with a psychic (Braga, who’s excellent), and the two go on a journey of discovery that gets downright silly with twists before long.
Rodriguez’s movies are known for their high-wire Looney Tunes pyrotechnics, where people find love and honor amid explosions and gunfire. Naturally, Hypnotic comes to life whenever he indulges in moments of bombast and ridiculousness. Early on, a muscled tough guy crashes a motorcycle through a storefront just to toss Affleck and Braga a dopey threat. When that sinister force I alluded to shows up, the people who do its dirty work wear red blazers that make them look like Target opened a hotel in Quantico. Braga, Fichtner, and Jackie Earle Haley gnaw on monologues about the concept of “hypnotics” and how reality can be manipulated to change the world as Rebel Rodriguez (Robert’s son) blasts an obtrusive score like every moment needs to truly mean something.
Hypnotic is almost disarming with its dorkiness. If only it was content with being an amusing mid-budget suspense goof, something I’m heartened to see hit theaters instead of being tossed into some streaming heap. Ironically, its glossy veneer of generic suspense trappings makes it feel less like a Christopher Nolan-caliber reach and more like one of those fake movie-within-a-movies, the kind of Lucas Lee-style dross you might find lurking around Tubi. Robert Rodriguez is putting his guerilla filmmaking past behind him to fit into a director’s mold that he should, by rights, be breaking.
5.5 out of 10
Hypnotic is in theaters now.
Directed by Robert Rodriguez.
Screenplay by Robert Rodriguez and Max Borenstein.
Cinematography by Pablo Berron and Robert Rodriguez.
Starring Ben Affleck, Alice Braga, J.D. Pardo, Hala Finley, Dayo Okeniyi, Jeff Fahey, Jackie Earle Haley, and William Fichtner.
Produced by Mark Gill, Guy Botham, Liza Ellzey, Jeff Robinov, John Graham, Racer Max, and Robert Rodriguez.
Rated R, but only kinda.
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