September 10, 2023 · Watch the official trailer
Hollywood is really struggling right now.
With writers and actors both on strike, the current and future landscape of moviemaking is screeching to a halt with expected box office draws moving to next year and the prospect of new productions growing slimmer each passing week.
Studios are having to reassess and prioritize films that they normally wouldn’t as a means of survival both in theaters and on their streaming services.
Originally shown as a “work-in-progress” screening at this year’s South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, “Hypnotic” from Texas director Robert Rodriguez starring A-lister Ben Affleck should be something that be a major draw but limped out the gate back in May to almost zero marketing and fell by the wayside just as quickly.
The film has made its home as the new movie du jour on NBC/Universal’s streaming service Peacock and despite prime placement and Affleck in practically every frame of the film, nothing about “Hypnotic” clicked with audiences as well as the film’s unique premise might suggest.
Affleck stars as an Austin police detective who’s unable to regain his focus after the abduction of his young daughter. Despite returning to active duty, his Danny Rourke seems completely out of sorts when he stumbles upon a secret government program that might have connections to his daughter’s disappearance.
Affleck truly wants to make the avant garde, bizarre screenplay work with a committed turn, leaning heavily on Rourke’s deep loss and sorrow from his daughter’s disappearance and it manifests well in a relentless, borderline obsessive compulsion to risk his own life to move one step closer to the truth.
It’s in the film’s quieter moments that Affleck does his best work and totally outclasses his castmates, especially Alice Braga as Diana, the love interest with a complicated past of her own that never really develops any chemistry with Affleck and feels out of sorts in these more dramatic moments that pull audiences out of the narrative.
As movie villains go, William Fichtner usually delivers an exceptional, stoically slimy performance and “Hypnotic” is no exception as the elusive, mind-bending Dellrayne. Rodriguez needs a compelling antagonist to make his narrative work and Fichtner has just the right blend of charm and sinister undertone to draw audiences in early before the plot fully unravels.
In a single scene, Jackie Earle Haley does some solid work as a contact for Rourke, but the character actor is woefully underutilized here.
From a narrative perspective, “Hypnotic” feels something more akin to the world of thriller auteur Christopher Nolan as the world-bending nature of the screenplay and psychological aspects of the storytelling almost feel ripped from the pages of “Inception” or “Tenet” and it’s enough of a departure from Rodriguez’s filmmaking style that “Hypnotic” becomes incredibly disjointed from act to act.
Genre bending is a difficult tightrope to walk for a filmmaker and the balance starts off well, but as the narrative unfolds, the limitations of the premise and the weak storytelling begin to truly show the weakness of “Hypnotic” as a whole.
Action sequences are few and far between for a film premised on a cat and mouse crime chase, though what is presented, especially in the first act, has some solid visuals and enough compelling intrigue that would have been the beginning of a terrific thrill ride. “Hypnotic” just never comes together.
Given the dearth of quality options in theaters, cinephiles in need of a quick and easy watch could been convinced to give a solid Affleck performance in a lower tier thriller a chance. Its 90-minute run time and ease of access on Peacock are the main benefits for audiences to seek out “Hypnotic” on a night in.
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