In the decades since his sharp-shooting outlaw debut El Mariachi, Robert Rodriguez has proven time and again that he certainly knows how to have good time on screen. Sadly, however, the same cannot be said of the clunking Hypnotic, which has to go down as an unfortunate misfire. Billed as a mind-bending thriller, this muddled caper could better be described as logic-defying. It is a film that asks: What if people with the power to completely reshape your reality with just a few choice words walked among us, and what if they used those powers in the most bafflingly infuriating ways imaginable?
Ben Affleck plays brooding police detective Brendan Rourke, and he’s in full Sad Affleck mode — even glummer than when Ana de Armas was cheating on him in Deep Water. We first meet Rourke zoning out during a therapy session regarding the abduction of his young daughter Millie (Hala Finley). While the kidnapper has been arrested, he’s plead not guilty and is claiming to have no memory of the incident. But when Rourke is called to an elaborate bank heist, he spots a mysterious man (William Fichtner) who appears to be able to pull a Jedi mind trick on anyone he meets with nothing but a couple of words. Could this powerful hypnotist have been involved in Millie’s disappearance? As layer upon layer of reality is peeled back, you might be left wishing it were all that simple. “This makes no sense!” Affleck shouts in frustration at one point. You’re telling us.
For a film this silly, it’s surprisingly humourless, although there are a few unintended chuckles to be had at the expense of its especially leaden dialogue. There are a handful of slick action scenes and a few neat reveals, but the reality-bending graphics largely serve only to invite unfavourable comparison to Inception. Christopher Nolan’s 2010 film is an obvious and frequent touchstone, although Rodriguez has been sitting on the screenplay for Hypnotic since 2002. Thankfully it’s all over in a tight 93 minutes — save for a mid-credits scene with yet another ill-advised twist to set up a potential sequel you’d need to be under a spell to ask for.