Hypnotic: Movie Review

Cast: Ben Affleck, Alice Braga, William Fichtner
Director: Robert Rodriguez

Riffing on Memento, with homage to Inception's visuals and with elements of sci-fi stories and 2000AD anthology stories, Robert Rodriguez's Hypnotic has more than enough elements to juggle.

It's just a shame some of those elements don't congeal into enough of a strong compelling story at times, and revelations feel flat and weak despite their narrative weight.

A dour and haunted Affleck is Detective Danny Rourke, who's affected by the trauma of seeing his daughter go missing right in front of his eyes. Called into a bank robbery investigation in Austin, Rourke's confronted by the seeming malevolence of Fichtner's Dellrayne, a man who can apparently manipulate others to his will.

When Rourke discovers there's a connection between Dellrayne and his missing daughter, the chase becomes personal...

Running at a lean 90 minutes, Hypnotic has some great concepts, wrapped in elements of stories seen many times before. From the XFiles episode Pusher to Inception, Hypnotic's touch points are well executed, but occasionally flawed thanks to exposition-heavy dialogue that sounds stilted and concepts that are simple but necessitate a need for continual explanation.

Braga is strong as Rourke's entry into the world he finds himself in - it's best to go into Hypnotic with no real clue and follow the mystery, and Rodriguez executes some strong visual moments and leans on plenty of genre tropes throughout. But when the final revelations pour forth, the film's mystery feels shallow and hollow, with easily spotted clues dotted throughout the movie.

It's surprisingly directed by Rodriguez who seems to have set aside all of the flair he normally has for something fairly perfunctory and occasionally workmanlike. It's watchable enough fare that sticks to its convictions, doesn't try to fool the audience and play with them, and wraps it all up within 90 minutes. It's rare these days to get a genre-laden film in at that time, and all those involved deserve to be commended.

It's just that no matter how much you may feel like you're falling under Hypnotic's spell, unfortunately it's not quite compelling enough to hold you under for a long time - but while you're in its thrall, and if you're aware of the genres it's plundering you may end up being surprised by how you're willing to invest in this world.