Title – Hypnotic (2023) 

Director – Robert Rodriguez (Sin City) 

Cast – Ben Affleck, Alice Braga, William Fichtner, Jackie Earle Haley

Plot – Detective Danny Rourke (Affleck) stumbles into a dangerous new world of mind-control and illusion as he investigates the disappearance of his missing daughter. 

“Mind control? Dream bank accounts? Sounds more like my ex-wife”

Review by Eddie on 17/07/2023

It’s safe to say on the basis of this effort that Robert Rodriguez is no Christopher Nolan. 

Not that many out in the wild have ever compared the Texan director directly with the the IMAX loving English mastermind, but judged on the basis of the epic sci-fi flop that is Hypnotic, it’s clear that Rodriguez himself was trying to conjure up something akin to a mid-budget Inception/Tenet. 

One of the most unpredictable directors to have graced the screens over the past forty years, with a We Can Be Heroes or Shorts always coming hot on the heels of a Sin City or From Dusk Till Dawn, Hypnotic is one of Rodriguez’s most ambitious projects yet and one that has been gestating in the directors brainstorming plans since the early 2000’s but despite the time the story has had to come to life over this time, it’s hard to know what Rodriguez was hoping for here as a finished product. 

If one’s intention when watching Hypnotic, following Ben Affleck’s charmless detective Danny Rourke enter into a dangerous mind-game against William Fichtner’s criminal/hypnosis expert Lev Dellrayne, is too watch a cohesive and sensible feature they’re going to be left feelings all types of disappointed by what they experience here with Rodriguez throwing everything at his 90 minute sci-fi infused thriller that is assured of a place in the next intake of so strange they surely can’t be real cult movies that appear to come from an entire different cinematic universe that audiences are used to. 

To say that Hypnotic is kooky, off-kilter and entirely uninterested in making any sense at all is an understatement as Rodriguez riffs and brazenly copies components of other films that share DNA with his mind-melting ride, with audiences looking to be shocked and confused recommended to head into this film with as little prior knowledge as possible to ensure that this almost so bad its good blockbuster hits all the right beats necessary to find enjoyment from it. 

Founded around a sleep-walking Affleck who couldn’t seem to care less about what’s going on around him here as things get more and more distant from a sensible direction, Hypnotic tries its best to cover up narrative cracks and significant flaws in logic by keeping things moving at an incessantly rapid pace but much like its lead characters trying to cover up their identities with some thrift shop sunglasses, there’s no hiding from the fact that Hypnotic works exclusively as a an example of a director biting off more than he can chew on his way to producing an eye-poppingly bizarre cinematic original, destined for a long life on the cult circuit. 

Final Say – 

You can’t accuse Hypnotic of not trying but despite its best attempts to constantly throw components and new angles at its audience, this significant box-office dud is a genuine fizzer that its stars and creator would likely prefer to erase from their back catalogue. 

2 minimal effort disguises out of 5