Ben Affleck’s ‘Hypnotic’ Is ‘Inception’ for Dummies
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An Austin police detective named Danny Rourke (Ben Affleck) sits in a therapist’s office. His daughter was kidnapped at a playground — he’d been watching her, then suddenly, poof, she’s gone — and the story has been all over the news for months. The cop is dutifully attending his mandated psych-evaluation sessions. Rourke is finally cleared to go back to work, and he and his partner (J.D. Pardo) have been assigned to a stakeout. Two banks in Texas have been robbed; in both cases, the culprits have only taken a single safe-deposit box. They’ve been tipped off that the Bank of Austin is the next target.
Then a curious thing happens: Rourke and his team see a man (William Fichtner) sit on a bench in front of the building they’re watching. The gent makes an idle comment to a woman next to him about it being hot out today. The next thing you know, she’s stripping her clothes off and walking into traffic. Rourke thinks this guy is the robber. He follows him into the bank, where several employees seem to be under his mental control. The cop gets to the deposit box first. Inside is… a picture of his missing daughter?! Then his partners attack him, the suspect disappears, and Rourke finds himself on the run with a tarot card reader named Diana (Alice Braga).
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Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: A man finds himself in a situation in which nothing is as it seems; he must rely on the aid of strangers to avoid the mysterious people who are pursuing him; and the world around him keeps warping into live-action M.C. Escher sketches. This is the plot, such as it is, of Robert Rodriguez’s Hypnotic, and if you recognize that this description could easily apply to a dozen other movies off the top of your head, it’s probably not a coincidence. The idea that the endlessly inventive filmmaker-cum-Lone Star DIY godhead would throw his director’s cap into the ring of brain-teasing psychological thrillers is exciting in theory. The reality — a word that gets thrown around a lot here, yet seems to hold no weight whatsoever — is that, not unlike an Escher painting, the damn thing keeps tying itself into knots. This isn’t the mesmerizing neuro-noir you want it to be. It’s closer to Inception for Dummies.
Twists are around every real and/or manufactured corner, as you might expect, though how “blown away” you are by the layers of revelations and fake-outs will depend on what you ingested before screening this or if you’ve suffered a recent head injury. A few things to know: There is an organization known as “The Division.” Something called “Project Domino” keeps getting name-checked. If you dress up your bad guys in matching red blazers, they will definitely look like the world’s most menacing real estate agents. Ben Affleck is the sort of old-school, handsome Hollywood leading man that too often gets short shrift talent-wise, but even he has has limits. Lines like “You have a psychic block that’s locked in a vault, inside a bunker ten feet deep!” isn’t something anybody should be forced to say, in a movie or otherwise.
Some other, peripheral bits of info: Just because you’re dipping your toe into conspiracy-theory and social-simulacrum territory doesn’t make you The Matrix. Complicated and convoluted don’t equal clever, though they can become synonymous with “car wreck.” Not everybody can be Christopher Nolan. Some shouldn’t even try.
Rodriguez has always used a certain pulpy verve to his advantage even after the blockbuster gang recruited him to occasionally help do their bidding, and he’s one of the few filmmakers who’s managed to make CGI and other digital VFX bells-and-whistles feel artisanal, artistically unique, fun. He can also switch up the playfulness and the high-tension pacing with equal facility, and without losing a beat. (No matter where you personally rank Spy Kids, it’s still an underrated movie. Ditto The Faculty.) With Hypnotic, however, something vital seems to have been lost in translation. That, or it may simply be buried under so much spoiler-bait ridiculousness. By the time Rodriguez starts replicating those familiar upside-down cityscapes and movable buildings, you get the sense that you’re watching a cover-band version of an auteur, covering another auteur’s hit single. One of the movie’s major plot points hinges on the ability of some especially gifted psychics being able to erase their own memories. What we would not give for that particular power right about now.
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