Review of the film “Hypnotic” by Robert Rodriguez

Robert Rodriguez’s sci-fi thriller Hypnotic starring Ben Affleck is on the screen. Despite the fact that the film failed at the global box office, grossing only $6.4 million against a budget of $70 million, and was also unanimously scolded by critics, Julia Shagelman found in it the simple charm of an old-fashioned videocassette entertainment for one evening, which is quite appropriate – although now increasingly rare – on the big screen.

Texas cop Danny Rourke (Ben Affleck) sits at the appointment of an office psychotherapist (Nikki Donley), to whom he goes on the orders of his superiors. He can’t stop thinking about the event that actually brought him to this office: four years ago, his daughter Minnie (Ioni Nieves) was kidnapped right from the playground when he turned away for a moment. The offender was caught and said that he did not remember anything, his lawyers played the card of insanity, but neither the girl nor her body was found. It destroyed Rourke’s marriage, and turned him into a walking example of an unresolved trauma from a psychology textbook. He continues to believe that his daughter is alive, and, of course, he is ready for anything to find her.

Naturally, the next task leads him to something similar to a trace. Rourke and his partner Nick (J.D. Pardo) ride out on a bank robbery that has yet to take place. But the police received an anonymous call warning of an impending crime, and since it is very similar to the two robberies that have already occurred in the branches of the same bank, the police take the tip seriously. On the spot, however, something strange is going on. For starters, for example, bank guards tell each other a joke about a bartender and piss-flavored beer that we heard 28 years ago in Rodriguez’s Desperado. But this is a short moment of narcissism on the part of the director, but the appearance of a mysterious man (William Fichtner), who seems to be able to subdue anyone to his will, the participation of a random passer-by, a cashier and even two policemen enchanted by him, in a bank cell robbery and, most importantly, a photograph of Minnie , which is in this cell, is already serious.

Rourke takes on an unsanctioned investigation that leads him to a clairvoyant Diana (Alicie Braga), who turns out to be not just a fairground fortune teller, but a powerful psychic, or, as she calls herself, a hypnotist. As, of course, and that same mysterious stranger who tried to rob the cell. And both of them, as well as many others like them, were once recruited by some government organization that is developing methods for controlling human consciousness.

From this point on, the old-school action movie about an honest cop looking for his daughter turns into a fantasy with elements of conspiracy theory, reminiscent of brain-bending nineties sci-fi like The Lawnmower Man and Johnny Mnemonic, and, for example, Christopher Nolan’s Inception. The reality here bends and bends almost like in the last picture (only for much less money, of course), but Rodriguez cannot be reproached for plagiarism: the idea for Hypnotic came to him twenty years ago. In addition, he, fortunately, does not pretend to Nolan ponderous suggestiveness. As well as some topical political commentary: the arguments of his characters about government schemes for managing the population are purely decorative.

Affleck’s stone face, able to express two or three emotions, the main of which can be described by the question “where am I?” from an old anecdote, perfectly suits its hero, who suddenly finds out that literally everything around is not what it seems. It’s almost as good a casting decision as David Fincher’s Gone Girl, although Rodriguez doesn’t have his irony – but perhaps it’s not needed here. The humor in the film is uncomplicated, the dialogues sometimes seem self-parodic, and in some places the picture crosses the cherished border “so bad it’s already good” – and this is for the present time, when even entertaining (or above all entertaining) cinema takes itself incredibly seriously, in a way refreshing. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to dispense with the finale without a detailed explanation of what happened here in the preceding eighty minutes. However, these minutes pass easily and cheerfully enough to forgive the authors for some uncertainty that the audience themselves will understand everything perfectly.