Film Review: HYPNOTIC (2023): Robert Rodriguez’s Twisty Movie is a Mess but Still Maintains Viewer Interest

Hypnotic Review

Hypnotic (2023) Film Review, a movie directed by Robert Rodriguez, written by Max Borenstein and Robert Rodriguez and starring Ben Affleck, Alice Braga, JD Pardo, Dayo Okeniyi, Jeff Fahey, Jackie Earle Haley, William Fichtner, Zane Holtz, Ruben Javier Caballero, Kelly Frye, Sandy Avila, Ryan Ryusaki, Hala Finley, Ionie Olivia Nieves, Corina Calderon, Nikki Dixon, Bonnie Discepolo and Kelly Phelan.

Ben Affleck is a charismatic actor but in Hypnotic, he’s solemn and intense playing a man who is trying to navigate a difficult and confusing series of events. We’ve never witnessed Affleck on screen with so little joy and with so much anxiety. Of course, the story line of this new picture doesn’t help matters because it’s tremendously hard to follow. Even after seeing the movie, it’s hard to know what, exactly, happened. Some scenes repeat themselves making it a Groundhog Day sort of action picture at times but Robert Rodriguez’s Hypnotic is reminiscent most of Christopher Nolan’s Inception except this new film has a much smaller budget. Inception was an excellent movie. Hypnotic may be forgotten by next week.

Affleck portrays an Austin detective named Danny Rourke who is led to a safe deposit box in a bank which has a picture of his missing daughter, Minnie (played by two young actresses at different ages, Ionie Olivia Nieves and Hala Finley) inside it. A lot goes down outside the bank which includes a woman taking her top off complaining about the hot temperature. Eventually, the action proceeds to a rooftop where two cops shoot each other. Something isn’t normal here. Alice Braga plays a fortune teller who advises Danny that things are looking rather bleak for him. Soon, Danny is donning disguises to avoid the cops. William Fichtner plays a key heavy named Dellrayne who plays a very pivotal part in the action throughout the film.

There is a scene on some train tracks where Danny is running away from some unkind folks and this one is actually pretty well constructed as it starts unveiling some of the major ideas of the plot. Jackie Earle Haley pops up in a surprise role within the movie as well as a character called Jeremiah. Talking about his role is probably not a wise idea to avoid major spoilers.

This movie has its fair share of tricky plot devices from distorted memories to the surprising revelation of the whereabouts of Minnie. This film is conceived similarly to Inception but has a lot less going for it than Christopher Nolan’s gem. Hypnotic needed a bigger budget to get the themes it wanted to convey across to the audience in a powerful way. It’s easy to see this movie had grand ambitions but they are undermined by the script which throws in too many twists willy-nilly at the end and will leave the audience baffled in certain sections of the film thanks to the uncertain meaning behind some key scenarios that occur throughout the movie.

Ben Affleck has always been a talented actor but this may be his least enjoyable performance to date. He plays a good hero but there’s a lack of charisma in the character of Danny. More development could have improved the character significantly. Alice Braga is always reliable and does her best to work with the material at hand. William Fichtner is above average in a role that leaves the audience asking a lot of questions as Dellrayne runs from Danny initially but seems to hold the key to the puzzle the movie presents to viewers. Braga and Fichtner certainly are the most proficient members of the supporting cast.

Ultimately, Hypnotic suffers from its brief running time in contrast to what it tries to accomplish. There’s a bond between Danny and Minnie that needed to be strengthened to give the movie more of an emotional punch. The action is adequate but there are a lot of sequences which feel flat for whatever reason. A bigger budget may have given more pizzazz to the material and enhanced the enjoyment factor of the picture. Rodriguez can certainly stage a good action sequence but the scenes in Hypnotic suffer from the lack of better production values.

Still, Hypnotic is not necessarily boring. It moves along at a fast clip and piecing together the film’s mysteries will take at least two viewings of the movie in order to get everything out of the film that it attempts to achieve. Inception was an easy movie to watch multiple times because of the great visual effects, sound editing and musical score. Those elements of Hypnotic are barely adequate and Robert Rodriguez has done better work than this in the past. But, fans of movies like Memento and Inception may find it’s worth the investment.

Rating: 5.5/10

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