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There’s a lot of empty space in “ Hypnotic ,” a doofy, though never boring sci-fi thriller about a Texas cop, played by Ben Affleck , who stumbles upon a conspiracy of mind-controlling crooks. Or he seems to stumble upon them. Reality buckles and warps around our troubled hero, whose daughter has already gone missing before the movie starts.

Now Detective Daniel Rourke (Affleck) alternates between chasing after and running away from an elusive mind-controlling “hypnotic,” played by William Fichtner . Fichtner’s baddy is the prime (and only) suspect in a weird bank heist that leaves Rourke dazed and clutching at a Polaroid of his daughter Minnie ( Hala Finley ). Some mysterious handwriting on the photo tells Rourke to “Find Lev Dell Rayne.”

Wide-angle photography also helps viewers to distinguish between “reality” as Rourke knows it and the “ Inception ”-style delirium that warps his (and our) perspective, often shot with spherical camera lenses. If you squint hard enough at “Hypnotic,” past the obvious twists and embarrassing dialogue, you might see flashes of a deeper story, though only if you’re a fan of multihyphenate filmmaker Robert Rodriguez .

Rodriguez (“ Alita: Battle Angel ,” “ Four Rooms ”) directed, scripted, and edited “Hypnotic” in Austin, Texas, after three production breaks and an insurance lawsuit. Austin was not Rodriguez or his production’s first choice of location (Los Angeles), nor was it their second (Toronto). Still, it’s hard to imagine how Rodriguez could have shot “Hypnotic” anywhere but Austin, especially because he’s filmed most of his projects in Austin during his 30 years as a filmmaker. Moreover, when “Hypnotic” is more about ambiance than story, it seems to reflect a crisis of imagination: what happened to the weird and vibrant Austin of Rodriguez’s memory? Did it ever really exist?

I don’t mean to over-sell the personal qualities that often skirt the periphery of Rourke’s quest for answers, but “Hypnotic” does try to lull viewers into a suggestive frame of mind, primarily by over-stating the facts of Rourke’s investigation. He teams up with Diana Cruz ( Alice Braga ), a “dime store psychic” (his words) who ferries Rourke around Austin’s shadier corners. Rodriguez’s fans might recognize a few key locations, like the Bone Shack barbecue spot from “Planet Terror,” where truckers and Texas Rangers refuel with breakfast tacos. Other Austin locations are only familiar because of the character actors lurking inside, like Jeff Fahey and Jackie Earle Haley . There’s also an Alex Jones-type paranoiac ( Dayo Okeniyi ) hiding in a lavishly decorated bunker. He can see fine, but still wears an eyepatch that he shifts from eye to eye to avoid detection by security cameras, because of their facial recognition technology, right?

The prefab weird-ness of this secret Austin, the city that Rourke never thought to investigate, inevitably proves to be as substantial as the movie’s canned and by-now-stale remixing of the genre tics and tropes that Christopher Nolan previously claimed in signature movies like “ Memento ,” “Inception,” and “ Tenet .” “Hypnotic” isn’t as polished nor as thoughtful as Nolan’s trendsetters. It’s also often distractingly stiff in its over-inflated visual compositions and robotic dialogue. A game cast, led by the thanklessly charming Affleck, does not add much value to this bald caper.

Still, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy watching Rodriguez clumsily apply his signature fetishes to “Hypnotic,” a movie where Alice Braga offers Ben Affleck a glass of clear moonshine whiskey and an unnamed Texas Ranger, with a white cowboy hat and matching suit, takes his coffee “black ‘n sludgy.” If you’re a Rodriguez fan, you might be charmed by these clumsy and perhaps over-confident personal touches. His humor is certainly corny enough to be an acquired taste, like when River, Okeniyi’s paranoid hacker, offers Rourke some “homemade Mountain Dew” after showing him his disturbed mind corkboard, which connects everything to hypnotics, from Brexit to the Pope. “My own brew, all organic,” River boasts about his DIY Dew. Rourke still declines.

Fans will recognize and appreciate the well-worn pleasures of this lightly seasoned genre exercise. Others will understandably laugh at Ben Affleck when he says things like, “Hypnotics did all this?!” Rodriguez also tends to linger on shots and story beats a little too long, presumably to ensure distracted viewers cannot miss overt cues. It’s hard, though not impossible, to be seduced given these trying conditions.

Look, the dramatic stakes could be higher, but that’s part of the fun with “Hypnotic,” a bombastic, pseudo-mindbending chase movie where A-listers mosey into an underwhelming twist. Your enjoyment depends on how badly you want to watch Rodriguez and the gang struggle to pull a well-beaten rug out from under you. “Hypnotic” may not be clever or energetic enough to keep your mind from wandering, but it is charming in its own stumbling way.

In theaters now .

Simon Abrams

Simon Abrams is a native New Yorker and freelance film critic whose work has been featured in  The New York Times ,  Vanity Fair ,  The Village Voice,  and elsewhere.

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Film credits.

Hypnotic (2023)

Rated R for violence.

Ben Affleck as Daniel Rourke

Alice Braga as Diana Cruz

William Fichtner as Liv Del Rayne

J. D. Pardo

Hala Finley as Dominique Rourke

Dayo Okeniyi

Jackie Earle Haley

Kelly Frye as Vivian

Melanie Hawkins as Emily

Derek Russo as Tiny

Bonnie Discepolo

• Robert Rodriguez

Writer (story by)

• Max Borenstein

Cinematographer

• Pablo Berron
• Rebel Rodriguez

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A detective investigates a mystery involving his missing daughter and a secret government program. A detective investigates a mystery involving his missing daughter and a secret government program. A detective investigates a mystery involving his missing daughter and a secret government program.

• Robert Rodriguez
• Max Borenstein
• Ben Affleck
• Alice Braga
• 359 User reviews
• 141 Critic reviews
• 53 Metascore

• Danny Rourke

• Randy Nicks

• Carl Everett

• Lev Dellrayne

• (as Ruben Caballero)

• Thelma Everett

• Minnie Rourke (10 yo)

• Minnie Rourke (7 yo)
• (as Ionie Nieves)

• Business Woman #1
• (as Bonnie Kathleen Ryan)

• Business Woman #2
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Did you know

• Trivia The joke that the security guard tells his partner, about the man betting a bartender he can pee in a glass, is also featured in Robert Rodriguez's earlier film 'Desperado' in which it was delivered by Quentin Tarantino.
• Goofs A character's federal profile informs us that they cannot be influenced by other hypnotics. However, an after-credits scene reveals that they were influenced by a hypnotic to see one person as if they were another person. This is not a goof, because the information was fake; and it is easier to fool someone, if you convince them that they can't be fooled.

Diana Cruz : I love you.. don't ask me why.

• Crazy credits Final ending is shown in a mid-credit scene.
• Connections Featured in Kermode & Mayo's Take: Master Gardener, Hypnotic, the Gallows Pole, Shane Meadows + Sophie McShera (2023)

User reviews 359

• May 2, 2023
• How long is Hypnotic? Powered by Alexa
• May 12, 2023 (United States)
• United States
• United Kingdom
• Bluerider Pictures
• Official Site
• Những Kẻ Thao Túng
• Austin, Texas, USA (Downtown)
• Blue Rider Pictures
• Double R Productions (II)
• Golden Liberty Films
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $70,000,000 (estimated)
• May 14, 2023
• $16,281,937

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• Runtime 1 hour 33 minutes

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Hypnotic review – preposterous tosh from start to finish starring Ben Affleck

Affleck is in full frowny mode as a haunted cop on the tail of a criminal mastermind in a thriller that seems to revel in its absurdity

E ver wondered what would happen if someone stole a bunch of head-scratching mystery riffs from Now You See Me , The Adjustment Bureau , Memento and The Matrix , stuck them in a blender with an assortment of late-80s straight-to-video neo-noirs, and then pressed go without closing the lid, thereby causing the resultant volcanic eruption to merrily redecorate the world? Well, wonder no more, because here’s co-writer/director Robert Rodriguez with one he prepared earlier – splattering the cinema screen with all the colours of the daft, courtesy of an A-list star, a B-movie aesthetic, a C-minus musical score, and a D/E audience rating ( Hypnotic has already failed to mesmerise in the US). Rejoice, fans of big-screen trash, as Oscar-winner Ben Affleck invites you to join him on a journey that will test your head, and your mind, and your brain …

Affleck is in maximum frowny mode as Daniel Rourke, a detective haunted by memories of his young daughter’s abduction. The culprit pleaded “not guilty due to mental incapacity” after claiming to have no memory of the kidnapping, or of the child’s whereabouts. It sounds like a ruse, until Rourke finds himself playing cat-and-mouse with a criminal mastermind (William Fichtner) blessed with unholy powers of persuasion. “Are you familiar with the concept of hypnotic constructs?” asks Diana Cruz (Alice Braga), a “dime-store psychic” who delivers Basil Exposition-style speeches about “hypnotics” – people with “the ability to actually influence the brain over a psychic bandwidth. Telepaths just read the mind; hypnotics reshape its reality.”

Much of this dialogue, including the immortal line “He erased his own mind?!”, is at once overripe yet still oddly soft-boiled. As for the mise-en-scène, the early movements are all baked exteriors and strip-club-lighting interiors, with heavily coded reds, blues and greens. Later, when the big reveal happens, everything goes white, signalling that a light has been shone on all these mysteries – although it all continues to make no sense.

Rodriguez and co-scripter Max Borenstein, who wrote the 2014 Godzilla reboot and created the Minority Report TV series, go on a thematic shoplifting spree, snatching psychic pushes from Stephen King’s Firestarter , dozy psycho-crime plot twists from Primal Fear , and Philip K Dick false memories from Blade Runner, Total Recall et al. At times I was reminded of the 2015 thriller Solace , in which Anthony Hopkins helped the FBI by functioning as a sort of psychic satnav. Somehow, this is even sillier.

One minute Rodriguez is churning out sub- Inception world-bending hallucination scenes, the next he’s nodding his head toward Hitchcock as someone creeps towards a shower room brandishing a large pair of scissors ( Herrmannesque strings ahoy!). Affleck does a lot of eyes-closed, big-face acting to indicate just how conflicted his character feels, while Braga does an impressive job of not laughing while delivering lines such as “Pain can keep the mind awake”, or “He was already dead; I set him free”.

Sunglasses are worn indoors, scenery is chewed through sucked teeth (hats off to a scene-stealing Jackie Earle Haley for adding a fleeting note of uncharacteristic understatement) and a chase scene climaxes with a white van banging into a golf cart as everything implodes in a sub- Truman Show mess. Meanwhile composer Rebel Rodriguez leads the audience by the hand, with tinkly keyboard cues telling us when things are supposed to be sad, thumpy bash-bash noises pumping up the action scenes, and big quasi-Zimmer honks reminding us that his dad is essentially doing Christopher Nolan on the cheap.

While the result may be preposterous tosh from start to finish (a nippy 94 minutes – hooray!), there’s fun to be had in scenes of a man attempting to pull his own hand off while under the influence, and in gunfights that turn into staring competitions and then end with everyone simply shooting themselves in the foot. Since Rodriguez’s back catalogue contains such knowing pulp as the vampire actioner From Dusk Till Dawn and the grindhouse pastiche Planet Terror , one presumes that he knows exactly how ridiculous this all is, and has his tongue planted firmly in his cheek throughout. Or maybe not. The fact that I’m not entirely sure simply adds to the guilty pleasure.

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‘Hypnotic’ Review: For His Next Trick, Robert Rodriguez Will Pull Ben Affleck out of a Funk

Boasting imagination and pure filmmaking ingenuity, the 'El Mariachi' director's new mind-bender (screened as a work in progress at SXSW) reminds what fun it is to watch the 'Argo' star in action.

By Peter Debruge

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Don’t trust anything you see or hear in “ Hypnotic ,” a noggin-jogging thriller with more twists than Minnie’s tightly braided ponytail. Who’s Minnie? She’s the girl who goes missing in the movie’s opening scene when police detective dad Daniel Rourke ( Ben Affleck ) looks away for a second. Or does she? Depending how your mind works, there’s a chance Minnie doesn’t even exist. The perp was caught, but Minnie’s body was never found — which is a clue that this wasn’t a typical disappearance.

One minute, Rourke’s chasing a bank robber with the power to bend people’s brains, the next he’s on the run from the very same psychic. Keeping up is like working out in a gym where gravity keeps changing. Just when things start to get heavy, the floor drops out from under you.

This much is fairly constant for most of the film, which premiered at SXSW as a “work in progress”: Affleck plays a shallow film noir archetype, the damaged detective, leaning more on his chiseled cheekbones than on deep character work, which is just as well, since the only psychology audiences need from Rourke is (a) that he misses Minnie and (b) that he’s a pit bull on any case, willing to ignore orders and endanger himself for whatever cause he believes in. Rodriguez and co-writer Max Borenstein (who penned the last few “Godzilla” movies) make that clear in the first reel, as he watches an impossible bank robbery unfold from a surveillance van.

The less you know going in, the more fun the movie will be. Hypnotics wear scarlet red coats, while the film’s more subtly clad femme fatale is a psychic named Diana Cruz (Alice Braga), who has special powers as well. Rourke’s right not to trust her at first, although Fichtner’s character — who might be this Dellrayne fellow — seems determined to kill her and Rourke, so sticking with her seems the better move for the time being. Fueled by a score from Rodriguez’s son Rebel, “Hypnotic” races along fast enough that audiences don’t have much time to dwell on the not-inconsiderable inconsistencies, though Rodriguez approaches the whole endeavor with a pure sense of filmmaking-as-play that won this critic over.

At a certain point, Rourke discovers (spoiler alert in this paragraph) that some of his experiences are “hypnotic constructs” — which means people aren’t who they appear to be, and entire situations that he (and we) have witnessed might have been no more than the power of suggestion. He might even be able to do these tricks as well, which puts “Hypnotic” in a very fun place (for most, and frustrating for others) where pretty much anything can happen. In some scenes, the horizon lifts and folds over on itself, à la “Inception.” In another, the camera cranes out to reveal that Rodriguez has repurposed a back alley from “Alita: Battle Angel,” and that everything’s a film set, though why that is and what it all means is best discovered on-screen.

The movie’s one-word title is a hat tip to Hitchcock, and the movie’s MacGuffin (that is, the thing everyone wants, while audiences amuse themselves with its pursuit) is an all-powerful hypnotic called “Domino.” The goal is first to find the puzzle pieces and then to assemble them into something resembling a coherent picture. While that plot engine is spinning overtime, Rodriguez returns to the matter of Minnie, whom Rourke never forgot about, and whose fate brings everything else into focus for a climactic surprise — namely, that for all the pyrotechnics and rug pulls, “Hypnotic” has mesmerized us into caring about these characters.

Rodriguez knows better than practically any filmmaker out there that movies are a form of hypnosis. It’s all sleight of hand, designed to make us care about a story and characters that don’t exist, so why not embrace that spirit in the execution? Most of the time, “Hypnotic” looks great (embracing the widescreen format, Rodriguez shared cinematography duties with Pablo Berron, who lit the atmospheric scissors scene), but occasionally, you can see the seams — which is fine, since it’s all a construct anyway. And just when you think the ride is over, along comes a last surprise in the credits, suggesting where a sequel might pick up.

Reviewed at SXSW (Narrative Spotlight), March 12, 2023. Running time: 89 MIN.

• Production: A Ketchup Entertainment release of a Solstice Studios, Ingenious, Studio 8 presentation of a Double R production. Producers: Jeff Robinov, John Graham, Racer Max Rodriguez, Robert Rodriguez, Guy Botham, Lisa Ellzey, Mark Gill. Executive prodcuers: Crystal Bourbeau, Vincent Bruzzese, Christelle Conan, Walter Josten, Christopher Milburn, Ben Ormand, James Portolese, Joshua Throne, Peter Touche, Jordan Wagner, Gareth West, Maitreya Yasuda. Co-producer: Justin Moritt. Co-executive producers: Ryan Basford, Court Coursey, Caylee Cowan.
• Crew: Director: Robert Rodriguez. Screenplay: Robert Rodriguez, Max Borenstein; story: Robert Rodriguez. Camera: Robert Rodriguez, Pablo Berron. Editor: Robert Rodriguez. Music: Rebel Rodriguez.
• With: Ben Affleck, Alice Braga, William Fichtner, JD Pardo, Jeff Fahey, Sandy Avila, Hala Finley, Ionie Nieves, Nikki Dixon.

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‘Hypnotic’ Review: The Doctor Is Dangerous

In Netflix’s new thriller, a depressed woman gets more than she bargained for when she starts seeing a charismatic hypnotherapist.

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By Lena Wilson

In “Hypnotic,” Jenn (Kate Siegel) is a software engineer who has been dealing with depression and loss. She tells her new hypnotherapist, Dr. Meade (Jason O’Mara), that she’d like to “pass” on his specialized form of treatment. Still, he cajoles her into a session, and when she comes back from her hypnosis, he seems eerily pleased.

“I think you might be more open to suggestibility than you imagine,” he tells her.

Though this happens within the first 20 minutes of the film, directed by Suzanne Coote and Matt Angel and written by Richard D’Ovidio, it is hardly the first red flag against Dr. Meade. He has already courted Jenn at a house party for one of his other clients, allowed someone else to schedule Jenn’s first appointment for her without her consent, and set his therapy sessions in an office that makes the Death Star look like Disneyland. We get it: This guy is bad news, and Jenn is in trouble.

While the resulting cat-and-mouse dynamic is predictable, particularly if you’ve ever watched a Lifetime movie, “Hypnotic” takes its cartoonishness to admirable heights. Not only is Dr. Meade an unethical therapist, he is basically a supervillain, his nefarious practices blurring the line between hypnosis and outright mind control. Drop a lovable lead into that mix, and — as long as you don’t take anything too seriously — you’ve got a nice little popcorn flick.

And Jenn is certainly lovable. She is self-destructive but self-aware — she wants to sleep more, drink less, be happy. When she first sees Dr. Meade’s hostile office space, she jokingly calls it “cozy.” Siegel, who viewers might know from other Netflix chillers like “The Haunting of Hill House” and “Hush,” is notably more winsome here than in past roles. Her accessibility keeps the story from nose-diving into self-seriousness, a necessity in a film that tries to explain its villain’s own impossible powers by name-dropping the Central Intelligence Agency’s MK-Ultra experiments.

As Dr. Meade terrorizes Jenn and her allies, including her former fiancé (Jaime M. Callica), her best friend (Lucie Guest) and a shrewd detective (Dulé Hill), “Hypnotic” tiptoes on the line between enjoyable and ridiculous. It’s akin to — but definitely nimbler than — “Sightless,” another disempowered-woman thriller that was on Netflix earlier this year.

The twists in “Hypnotic” may not be brilliant, but they are abundant, making for the sort of straight-to-streaming treat best enjoyed on a couch, with company who will laugh with you and let you yell at the screen.

Hypnotic Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 28 minutes. Watch on Netflix.

Lena Wilson is a project manager at The New York Times and a freelance writer covering film, TV, technology and lesbian culture. More about Lena Wilson

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Hypnotic review: Robert Rodriguez directs Ben Affleck in a pleasant Christopher Nolan homage

For director known for ambitious highs like sin city and alita: battle angel , it's a surprisingly normal but welcome departure.

Hypnotic may be Robert Rodriguez’s most conventional movie since 1998's The Faculty , and that’s not at all a bad thing. While his ambition can lead him to delirious highs like Sin City and Alita: Battle Angel , the writer-director-excess-multitasker is also extremely prone to over-rushed, half-assitude like Machete Kills , or near-endless failed attempts to make another kids’ movie as great as the first Spy Kids . His proposed remakes of Heavy Metal , Fire And Ice , and Red Sonja may remain in development hell, but instead he’s done the most surprising thing that he could. And that’s to make a star-driven cop/heist/chase movie with a sci-fi twist. It’s his version of a Christopher Nolan original, except for the fact that it costs far less and everything gets explained by the end.

The movie begins, like the TV show Lost , with an opening eye. A pen taps rhythmically, like a metronome. Ben Affleck is in therapy. He’s Rourke, a cop attempting to prove he’s fit for duty again following the disappearance—likely abduction—of his daughter. Ready or not, the events of the day suck him in regardless, as his partner Nicks (J.D. Pardo) just got a mysterious tip about a bank that’s about to be robbed of exactly one safe deposit box. Since that would follow a recent pattern of similar crimes, it seems legit.

Just like every audience member who’s ever seen a cop movie before, Rourke almost immediately fingers William Fichtner as a primary suspect the moment the latter walks onscreen. But he can’t bust him without proof, and all Fichtner’s mysterious character seems to be doing is walking up to people and making post-hypnotic suggestions. They’re powerless to stop from acting on his command, and he seems to have beautifully choreographed every person he meets to thwart Rourke on a large scale. But not before Rourke finds a clue that his daughter may be involved, and his opponent’s name is apparently Dellrayne.

The less said about what ensues, the better, beyond the fact that Rourke teams up with a former associate of Dellrayne’s named Diana (Alice Braga), who moonlights as a scammy faux-psychic. Mysteries unfold, and like Inception and Tenet , the story has something of a symmetrical structure. Anyone familiar with twisty thrillers may see a thing or two coming, but probably not the full picture.

Rodriguez isn’t generally a filmmaker big on ambiguity; nor is his co-writer Max Borenstein, who’s responsible for the recent Godzilla and King Kong movies. Much to the likely relief of many, they don’t just throw out an obvious red herring and call it a day. Once it’s established that the primary antagonist can forcibly hypnotize anyone, nothing we see is entirely trustworthy. Even as he plays around with this conceit, however, Rodriguez appears to mostly play by his own rules. And he throws in a few visual effects, though they aren’t really needed, just to show he can do the Nolan scenery folding trick, too. Perhaps as counterbalance, he lets at least one scene of pure exposition in a drab setting go on longer than it ought.

Hypnotic isn’t just refreshingly straightforward for Rodriguez, but for Ben Affleck too. Traditionally, the actor has fared less well in generic leading-man parts than in character roles. Here, growling out the last vestiges of his Batman voice, he convincingly comes off like a guy who’s seen some stuff and come out maybe slightly the rougher for it. Never much of a convincing action hero back when Michael Bay was pushing him to the moon as one, Affleck today falls more naturally into the Danny Glover-ish “gettin’ too old for this shit” space. Which, of course, means he’s not actually too old for it.

On a deeper level, one could consider the hypnosis at work in the story a metaphor for the filmmaking process itself, and especially Rodriguez’s particular process of working with his family on his own virtual stages. Like Dellrayne, he’s doing it to put images into your head, and immerse you in a new reality. Watch it alone, and that reality will even be uniquely yours for a while. Watch it with an audience, and others may see things in different ways. Actors might play multiple parts. Sometimes, as with the insufferable We Can Be Heroes , the man behind the curtain will be the villain in your story. With Hypnotic , he earns a bit of redemption. Let’s just all agree to forget that mid-credits sequel tease. For now, anyway.

( Hypnotic arrives in theaters on May 12, 2023)

Review: The ridiculous ‘Hypnotic’ allows Robert Rodriguez to play in his cinematic sandbox

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There’s something strange about “Hypnotic,” the new action thriller from writer-director Robert Rodriguez . There’s a sheen of inauthenticity to the trailer for this film, which stars Ben Affleck as a detective working a bank robbery while wracked with guilt over the kidnapping of his young daughter. Indeed, for the first 30 minutes or so of “Hypnotic,” something rings false — it feels like Rodriguez sloppily executing a sketchy exercise in the tropes and aesthetics of a detective noir. But then you realize that’s by design.

Because things aren’t what they seem in “Hypnotic,” as Det. Danny Rourke (Affleck) discovers when he descends down the rabbit hole of this inexplicable bank robbery, one that ends with him finding a Polaroid of his missing daughter in a safe deposit box. He follows the signs to a local psychic, Diana Cruz ( Alice Braga ), who unloads a baffling spiel about the “hypnotic constructs” weaponized by a mysterious man at the scene of the robbery whom they’re calling Dellrayne (William Fichtner), based on an inscription found on the Polaroid.

Thus unfolds Rodriguez’s “Hypnotic,” a mashup of “Inception,” “The Truman Show,” “Rashomon” and “X-Men.” After a few years directing TV and music videos, the film feels like Rodriguez getting back to his genre and indie roots, while working in his backyard of Austin, Texas, serving as director of photography (with Pablo Berron), editor and producer alongside his writing and directing duties, as he frequently does.

Review: If you could take a movie to the beach, ‘Book Club: The Next Chapter’ might be it

Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen return in this sequel to the 2018 hit, this time reading Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist” and heading to Italy for wine-soaked fun.

May 10, 2023

Some three decades after his breakout feature, “El Mariachi,” Rodriguez is still making films with the same run-and-gun indie ethos, and “Hypnotic” is indeed a refreshing reminder of that, as well as of his innate facility with cinematic style. “Hypnotic” sees Rodriguez playing with discrete aesthetics for the different spaces of this story, shooting on location and utilizing distinct lighting schemes and color-grading, demonstrating his ability with camera movements and shot compositions that signify a true filmmaker behind the lens.

But then there’s the matter of the script, co-written with Max Borenstein. The writing can only be described as complete mumbo-jumbo — there’s so much explaining, truly reams of exposition, and yet not nearly enough. Poor Braga is left to rattle off absolute nonsense regarding a secret government program to develop “hypnotic constructs” and the psychically gifted people being turned into weapons. And yet, there is little attention paid to the emotional underpinning of the story that would make us care enough about these people, and without that, it all feels so flimsy. The story is insanely, and impossibly, twisty, extending even after the credits have started to roll (please, no “Hypnotic 2”).

Affleck also seems completely at loose ends here. Perhaps he just wanted to go play in Rodriguez’s sandbox for a bit, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but his performance is utterly inert. He employs his gravelly Batman voice to mutter the noir-ish one-liners given to the grieving, grizzled, hollow-cheeked Det. Rourke. He’s not a man of action, but rather reaction, haplessly buffeted by the forces around him, expressionless, arms akimbo, standing around like a character in “The Sims” — which should be a tell as to which way the wind blows in “Hypnotic.”

As a film fan, you have to respect the continued indie spirit with which Rodriguez works, grinding out these projects outside of the traditional Hollywood system and forging his own path in the industry. It’s fun to see him color in new shades of film genre, but the script and performances in “Hypnotic” are too laughably absurd to take seriously.

Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

Rating: R, for violence Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes Playing: Starts May 12 in general release

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Hypnotic (2023) - movie review.

In 2002, inspired by a restoration of Hitchcock ’s 1958 classic Vertigo , filmmaker Robert Rodriguez set out to craft his own Hitchcockian thriller. Rodriguez does Hitchcock? Count me in!

Some 20 years later, that passion project has come to fruition in the form of Hypnotic , a twisty-turney thriller that stars Ben Affleck as Danny Rourke, an Austin-based detective determined to find his missing daughter with the help of a local psychic Diana Cruz ( Alice Braga ).

While the film suggests an attempt to capture the essence of his earlier works by promising an intriguing cat-and-mouse game with hypnotherapy, shady characters, and reality-bending bank robberies in its DNA, in reality it ends up drowning in a sea of convoluted twists and turns that ultimately lead to an absolute mind-bending mess.

While on one of his stakeouts following a spate of bank robberies in Houston and Amarillo, Rourke suspects an inside job involving the theft of a single safe deposit box in an Austin bank. Close observation reveals an increasingly suspicious figure (played perfectly by William Fichtner ) who may be at the heart of the robberies.

Thinking he may be onto a lead in the case, Rourke unexpectedly breaks the stakeout and enters the bank, beating the mysterious figure to the vault and its contents that prove to be far more valuable than anything they could have imagined. As the robbery unfolds, all hell breaks loose in gunfire and chaos as we see the mysterious figure seemingly manipulate the actions of everyone around him. Everyone but Rourke.

Who is this mystery man, what exactly are his powers, and why does Rourke seem to be unaffected by them? With the help of the psychic Cruz, Rourke navigates the perilous shadow world in which nothing is as it seems.

One of the biggest issues with Hypnotic is something that also plagues many superhero movies; the lack of a tether to reality. Say what you will about that notion, but although Rodriguez , who also co-writes the film, has proven himself capable of creating fantastical worlds that exist in various states of reality, Hypnotic takes it to a whole new level of implausibility. Sure, reality – or the lack thereof – serves a critical function here, but the plot becomes so tangled and far-fetched that it becomes difficult to fully invest in the story.

Furthermore, the mind-bending, shape-shifting elements of the film, around which the entire plot is built, are way too forced and contrived. As executed, the attempts to delve into the depths of the human psyche and explore the power of hypnosis come across as shallow and insufficient. Instead of provoking thought and challenging our perception, these elements simply add to the confusion and contribute to the overall sense of disbelief.

Even the performances from the usually reliable Affleck and Braga ( The Suicide Squad ), fail to salvage the film. Affleck 's protagonist is annoyingly one dimensional and fails to elicit any emotional connection with the audience. Braga , despite her talent, is given little to work with and ends up underutilized despite her ample screen time.

Ultimately, Hypnotic falls way short of its potential. While it shows flashes of Rodriguez 's earlier, more successful works, it fails to capture any of the magic that made those films special. The lack of grounding in reality, the convoluted plot, and the forced mind-bending elements all contribute to a disappointing and frustrating viewer experience. Certainly not the steroid-fueled Hitchcockian thriller Rodriguez was going for. You’ll forget this one before you hit the parking lot.

MPAA Rating: R for violence. Runtime: 93 mins Director : Robert Rodriguez Writer: Robert Rodriguez; Max Borenstein Cast: Ben Affleck; Alice Braga; JD Pardo Genre : Mystery | Thriller Tagline: Control is an illusion. Memorable Movie Quote: Theatrical Distributor: Ketchup Entertainment Official Site: https://www.hypnoticthemovie.com/ Release Date: May 14, 2023 DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: Synopsis : A detective investigates a mystery involving his missing daughter and a secret government program.

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• DVD & Streaming
• Comedy , Drama

Content Caution

In Theaters

• May 11, 2023
• Ben Affleck as Danny Rourke; Alice Braga as Diana Cruz; JD Pardo as Randy Nicks; Dayo Okeniyi as River; Jackie Earle Haley as Jeremiah; William Fichtner as Dell Rayne; Jeff Fahey as Carl; Zane Holtz as Trout; Ruben Javier Caballero as Watkins; Kelly Frye as Viv; Sandy Avila as Thelma; Ryan Ryusaki as Bong; Hala Finley as Minnie; Corina Calderon as Maria

Home Release Date

• May 30, 2023
• Robert Rodriguez

Distributor

• Ketchup Entertainment

Movie Review

Police Det. Danny Rourke only looked away for a second. But it was long enough: Minnie, his daughter, was gone.

They said that a man named Lyle Terry did it. But authorities detain and question Terry about Minnie’s whereabouts, he claims no recollection of kidnapping anyone. No one believes him. And sure, Rourke blames Terry. Ultimately, though, he blames himself for that mere moment he looked away.

The only thing Rourke can do is focus on what he can fix right now, which happens to involve a call to stakeout for an impending bank robbery. The hidden officers focus on an older man who seems to be the ringleader of the heist, a guy leading people who seem to be total strangers to each other in order pull off the crime.  

Soon, Rourke discovers that the man is after a safe deposit box. And all it contains is a photo of Rourke’s daughter with the phrase “Find Lev Dell Rayne” on it. He and two officers chase after the ringleader, cornering him on the roof of a parking garage. But the two officers hesitate when the man looks at them.

“What are you waiting for—cuff him!” Rourke yells.

“They’re no more conscious than Lyle Terry was,” the man says, before commanding the two officers to shoot one another to death, which they do without hesitation. And then, the man is gone, and Rourke is left with more questions than ever before.

Who is Lev Dell Rayne? How did the robber force complete strangers to do his bidding—even to the point of death?

And why is this man after his daughter?

Positive Elements

Ultimately, Rourke does most of what he does in order to discover where his kidnapped daughter is. Though he doesn’t understand much of what is happening, he continues to fight and search for answers, hoping that each clue will bring him back to his daughter. Some other people help Rourke in his pursuit, too.

Spiritual Elements

The movie suggests that there are many people known as hypnotics : individuals with the ability to “influence the brains of others,” forcing them to do whatever is commanded of them.

While this hypnotic ability is generally explained as little more than a genetic trait, there’s certainly a supernatural element that comes with their influence on others. For instance, hypnotized people can be commanded to kill themselves or others against their will, and we’re told that they can’t emerge from that hypnosis until they complete the command that’s been given to them.

We see a psychic who offers hypnosis and tarot card readings. She uses a crystal ball to perform a reading. Something is described as a “Holy Grail.”

Sexual Content

A woman is hypnotized to believe that it’s extremely hot outside, and she strips to her bra to try to cool down. A man and woman kiss, and the next scene implies that the two of them went quite further. Rourke is seen shirtless. A woman showers, but nothing is seen.

Violent Content

Many people die in Hypnotic , and some of those deaths are the reason for this film’s R rating.

A hypnotized man is commanded to kill someone. When he’s handcuffed to a bar, he tears at the cuffs to try to get to his target, and we see his hand being almost entirely severed in his attempt to get out of the handcuffs—all in gory detail. Another hypnotized man violently jams his head into a metal spike in order to kill himself.

Plenty of people are shot and killed—and some are hypnotized to kill themselves or others around them. Many headshots are shown, complete with a spray of blood and a camera shot focusing on the resulting wound. We also see people get hit by cars, and other cars crash into each other. One of those car accidents hurls a person through the windshield and onto the pavement. Someone blows up a couple people with a bomb.

Rourke’s daughter, Minnie, is kidnapped. Rourke fights against an angry mob of people, and one person is hit with a bat. Someone is tased.

Crude or Profane Language

The s-word is used five times. “H—” is uttered nearly 10 times. We also hear the occasional uses of “a–,” “b–ch,” “b–tard,” “p-ss” and “d–n.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

Rourke drinks moonshine.

Other Negative Elements

We hear a joke about urination.

Hypnotic is frustrating.

The film establishes an interesting premise: a criminal using hypnosis in order to compel others to assist him in his nefarious schemes. The problem, however, is that much like the victims in this story have no recollection of what happens following the crimes they’re induced to commit, Hypnotic likewise leaves its viewers feeling confused after a viewing, too.

Many plot twists occur during the film’s hour-and-a-half runtime. Almost all of them are explained away with a half-hearted, “Oh, what you saw earlier was actually hypnosis, so ignore that.” And though I’m sure the plot twists were supposed to make me feel as paranoid as anyone would be when dealing with someone who can influence your perception of reality, instead they left me frustrated and waiting for the next time the movie would tell me that what I just watched didn’t actually happen.

But that’s just the plot. I also need to mention the content-based issues. Most of those come from the film’s violent scenes, where we see plenty of hypnotized people forced to severely injure or kill themselves or others around them. Some of those deaths are quite gruesome. Swearing (primarily in the form of the s-word and “h—“) is also present, and there’s brief sexual content, too.

The hypnotics in the film might be able to compel others to do whatever they desire. But Hypnotic simply couldn’t hold my attention.

Kennedy Unthank

Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He doesn’t think the ending of Lost was “that bad.”

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'Hypnotic' Ending Explained: Robert Rodriguez Finally Unlocks Ben Affleck's Mind

When this silly science fiction romp lays all its cards on the table, it becomes clear that the truth was staring us straight in the face all along.

Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers for Hypnotic.

As it turns out, the key to the mystery facing Ben Affleck ’s troubled detective Danny Rourke in Robert Rodriguez ’s Hypnotic was far more simple and straightforward than he could have ever realized. Had the character taken a page out of the life of the actor playing him by seeking out a Dunkin’ Donuts to ponder everything that was going on sooner, this film would have been a whole lot shorter and he would have discovered the truth was really there all along. This is because there might not have been such an establishment to even find as the world the film gets lost in is not, in a manner of speaking, real. In case it wasn’t already clear, this piece is going to spoil everything that happens from beginning to end. If you haven’t yet seen it, read our spoiler-free review and then come back when you’re ready for the truth.

The truth is that this film is essentially a riff on a whole litany of science fiction stories from Inception to The Matrix series . To cut right to it, as gets spelled out in abundant detail, Danny was in a state of hypnosis for almost the entire runtime. Not only was he not a detective, but there was also no mystery that he was trying to solve. He didn’t even leave the chair that the secret society of hypnotists had trapped him in. The reality was that he and his wife ( Alice Braga ) had wiped all memory of their past lives in order to protect their daughter. They did so because this organization had wanted to use her power, which she gained from being the daughter of two hypnotics, to gain further control of the world. Her parents wanted to hide this away from them, but they would not give up so easily. Thus, they created the world of the film that is basically a compound that stands in for all the locations the story takes us through. The plan has been to use this to trick the hypnotized patriarch into telling them where his daughter is, but it has failed each time. That they keep trying to do something which keeps failing proves to be a grave mistake as he breaks free and leads them all into a trap of his own.

RELATED: Where to Watch 'Hypnotic': Showtimes and Streaming Status

Affleck Is Just A Sad Dad Looking For His Daughter

After managing to snap himself out of hypnosis by using a note he wrote himself that helps him remember the address where his daughter has been hiding out for years, the man we once thought was a detective steals a car, pushes aside a couple of golf carts, and hits the road. He won’t get away that easy as the other hypnotics are hot on his trail. They travel by both helicopter and car to where he is going, getting there shortly after he does. When they arrive, they all find Minnie ( Hala Finley ) awaiting them. It is clear that all the talk of her being a powerful hypnotist soon proves to be correct as she wreaks havoc on the people that have held her father hostage. The red suits that all of them were wearing soon become soaked in blood as Minnie makes them shoot each other. This seemingly also extends to the head baddy, played by an underutilized yet still menacing William Fichtner , who had been the one orchestrating all of the events of the film. While all this was going on, Minnie has a mind-meld moment with her mother and the three of them go off into what promises to be a happy life. However, in a mid-credits scene, we see Fichtner enter back into the fray as his character had used hypnosis to make it seem as though he was dead before disguising himself as another.

Rodriguez Is A Silly Guy Making A Silly Sci-Fi Movie

So what does this all really mean? To be candid, not a whole lot as the film mostly aspires to be a thriller that just wants to play around with some genre elements while also throwing in trippy visuals for good measure. Considering Rodriguez himself called the film “a Hitchcock thriller on steroids,” there isn’t much to be taken too seriously here. It is abundantly cheesy with a committed cast all chewing on lines that feel like they were lifted from other action films. While it takes a more sentimental turn into being about family and the lengths we would go for them, it does so with an emphasis on the spectacle of the hypnosis at the core of the story. This goes to such extremes that it is basically a superpower where anything is possible. With the combination of a piercing stare and encouraging words, reality itself can be warped.

The only real thing to delve into is how much it feels like it is basically Inception in reverse or the concept that was initially introduced at the beginning of how dreams could function. Rather than being about planting an idea in someone’s mind, this film was about taking the idea someone was trying to hold onto. Is it as deep in how it explores this? Not even a little. Is it quite a bit derivative of that and other works? You bet. Is there still something fun to it despite its flaws? Absolutely. Still, when putting these two films side by side, it is clear that they use similar visual trickery to achieve vastly different ends. By the time we get to the close of Hypnotic , everything is explained so thoroughly that there is no real ambiguity or potentially complicated questions left unanswered. There is no top left spinning for us to ponder as Rodriguez instead leaves us with what could be read as either a playful potential tease for a sequel that may never come or just a cliffhanger that will be left dangling all the same.

Hypnotic is in theaters now.

• Action/Adventure
• Children's/Family
• Documentary/Reality
• Amazon Prime Video

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Hypnotic’ on Peacock, in Which Poor Ben Affleck is Trapped in a Miserable Sci-Fi Thriller

Where to stream:.

• Hypnotic (2023)

• Ben Affleck

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Accountant’ on Netflix, with Ben Affleck Doing Math and Murder

‘the accountant 2:’ release date, plot, and everything we know about the ben affleck sequel, ‘the accountant’ ending explained: why does ben affleck send anna kendrick a painting, how did ‘the accountant’ become ben affleck’s biggest movie of the past decade.

Ben Affleck is in full mope-and-mutter mode in Hypnotic ( now streaming on Peacock ), a sci-fi thriller about high-powered mind-control agents who are part of a conspiracy to, I believe, make Affleck even more glum. The film is from director Robert Rodriguez, whose stock has been on a general decline since he jumped the Sharkboy 18 years ago, although he remains fairly prolific, perhaps because he doesn’t vet the pile of screenplays in his drawer for quality. Case in point, this ridiculous thing, which functions better as an Affleck meme factory than a comprehensible story. 

HYPNOTIC : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: It’s notable that the Wikipedia entry for Hypnotic warns us that its plot summary may be “too long or excessively detailed,” but that seems necessary considering how absurdly twist-riddled and overcomplicated this story is. I hereby pledge to do my best not to spoil anything or make it sound more interesting than it really is. We open in the midst of a therapy session where Austin Police Detective Danny Rourke (Affleck) goes over with the shrink how traumatized he is by that one fateful day when he briefly looked away from his daughter Minnie (Ionie Olivia) while she played in the park, and then never saw her again. He blames himself, and his marriage fell apart in the wake of the apparent abduction and likely murder. A suspect was lassoed but no body was ever found. The girl has been gone for a few years, and now Rourke never ever ever ever ever ever smiles – or poops, it seems.

The only thing Rourke does is throw himself into his work, and much to my dismay, we never get to see his apartment, which I imagine adheres to the Depressed Movie Detective Template and is therefore furniture-deficient but cluttered with Chinese-takeout boxes and half-empty beer bottles. All the more reason to just put in a zillion hours of work every week, I guess. He and his partner Nicks (J.D. Pardo) get a tip that a safe deposit box is about to get stolen, so they pile into a surveillance truck and stake out the bank. Rourke spots a gentleman outside the bank and immediately identifies him as suspicious, likely because he’s played by notable character actor William Fichtner with a big scar running down his face (and here I’d assert that it doesn’t take a big-shot cop to assume that notable character actor William Fichtner with a big scar running down his face is a suspicious gent). Rourke makes his way into the bank and beats notable character actor William Fichtner with a big scar running down his face to the safe deposit box, which contains only a polaroid of Minnie in it. The plot, it thicks!

Also notable about notable character actor William Fichtner with a big scar running down his face? He has the crazy ability to look at a person and manipulate their perception of reality. For example: He looks at a woman and says it’s really hot out here when it’s not really hot out here, and the next thing you know, she’s pulling off her top and cracking open a hydrant to cool off. As you’d imagine, this complicates things a bit. Rourke gets to investigatin’, and his investigatin’ leads him to a psychic-readings storefront where he meets Diana (Alice Braga), a Person Of Interest, and they barely introduce themselves to each other before notable character actor William Fichtner with a big scar running down his face mind-controls a dude to crash through the building on a motorcycle, which is just a terrible way to attempted-murder someone. This sets off a series of events that I won’t get into, because NO SPOILERS and all that, but I will say, after a while, it makes you feel like you’re trying to capture every member of a flock of wild geese as they flap and squawk and scatter in all directions.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Nothing like ripping off Inception 13 years after Inception , possibly with the hope that it’s been so long, nobody will notice that it’s a ripoff of Inception . But I noticed! I also noticed that it kinda rips off The Game , too!

Performance Worth Watching: If you watch Affleck closely while he’s being deadly serious, you might see him trying really hard not to laugh.  

Memorable Dialogue: Diana crafts a metaphor to describe where Rourke’s emotions exist in his brain: “Yours are locked inside a vault buried in a bunker 10 feet deep.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Hypnotic is a classic cheater plot where the concept can be used to explain away whatever chintzy-ass lame-o random sorry excuse for a twist Rodriguez dreams up. See, this is a movie where Nothing Is As It Seems, where sometimes what a character sees is All inside His Head, narrative chicanery that’s sub-It Was All A Dream dreck. Give it to the movie for being unpredictable; take it away for being nonsensical and arbitrary, as if Rodriguez is making up the internal “rules” of this world as he goes along.

All this would be less maddening if the movie gave us more than a few nifty shots – Rodriguez’s directorial style seems to emphasize visual efficiency over crafting any memorable sequences, whether they’re rooted in action or character development. It doesn’t even lean into its absurdity, blowing an opportunity to pitch a tent in Campville and inspire a few hoots. And Affleck – well, he looks profoundly uncomfortable with the material, donning a mean mug that’s possibly the funniest in Hollywood, intentionally or otherwise. The film’s visual effects look incredibly cheap, especially considering its reported $65 million budget; for some sequences where the mind-controllers eff with reality, the edges of the screen warp and distort like we’re watching high-school a/v interns gussy up a public-access television broadcast. There’s a low-angle shot where Affleck concentrates really really hard in an attempt to use some super brain powers, and his forehead balloons until he looks like a bulb-headed Karloff Frankenstein. It was the only time Hypnotic inspired a response other than restless indifference – I laughed my ass off.

Our Call: I’m afraid Ben Affleck is more meme than man now. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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2021, Horror/Mystery & thriller, 1h 29m

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Hypnotic videos, hypnotic   photos.

A young woman seeking self-improvement enlists the help of a hypnotist.

Genre: Horror, Mystery & thriller

Original Language: English

Director: Matt Angel , Suzanne Coote

Producer: Michael J. Luisi

Writer: Richard D'Ovidio

Release Date (Streaming): Oct 27, 2021

Runtime: 1h 29m

Production Co: The Long Game

Sound Mix: Dolby Digital

Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)

Cast & Crew

Kate Siegel

Jason O'Mara

Dr. Collin Meade

Lucie Guest

Jaime M. Callica

Darien Martin

Squad Leader

Luc Roderique

Suzanne Coote

Richard D'Ovidio

Screenwriter

Michael J. Luisi

John S. Bartley

Cinematographer

Roger Fires

Production Design

Brad Karsgaard

Art Director

Set Decoration

Ariana Preece

Costume Design

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Common sense media reviewers.

Slick but shallow thriller has violence, peril, language.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Overcome hardships with help from friends and good

Jenn wants to get her life back on track, feel bet

The main character is a White woman, and the villa

Lots of fear, moments of peril, and some violence.

A man and a woman sleep together, but only the mor

Strong language includes a few instances of "f--ki

References to Uber and Apple iPhones.

Adults drink alcohol, wine, beer, whiskey.

Parents need to know that Hypnotic is a thriller about a depressed woman looking for help getting her life back on track. Having experienced a devastating loss, Jenn (Kate Siegel) agrees to see a therapist (Jason O'Mara) who specializes in hypnosis. But this therapist is not all that he seems. In this…

Positive Messages

Overcome hardships with help from friends and good therapy.

Positive Role Models

Jenn wants to get her life back on track, feel better, and forgive herself. She's open to therapy and help. Once she realizes her danger, she does seek help from a police officer, detective Wade Rollins. Wade is a hero, looks into Jenn's case, and even kind of saves the day. A woman therapist offers the kind of help Jenn should have received in the first place.

Diverse Representations

The main character is a White woman, and the villain is a White man, but both of the primary male significant others and the detective are Black men.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Lots of fear, moments of peril, and some violence. Two men get into a fight, punches are thrown, and one attempts to choke the other. A man hits another man with a crowbar. A woman imagines being crushed to death by enclosing elevator walls. A woman stabs a man in the arm, slashes his side, and gets thrown off into a coffee table, hitting her head. A woman shoots a man in the torso, and police shoot a man in the chest multiple times until he's dead. A man is put into the hospital after eating a food he's allergic to. He chokes and passes out in the bathroom. A woman imagines a spider on her while driving, speeds into a red light and intersection, and gets hit by a semi-truck, killing her and her husband. A man dresses and applies make up to a woman without her consent. Many women black out, hurt others, and hurt themselves without wanting to. One woman imagines she's being choked to death. A woman shares her story of losing her child to stillbirth at 6 months old. Mention of suicide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A man and a woman sleep together, but only the morning after is shown with the woman still in bed under covers. The man left a note. A woman has sensual and romantic dreams about a man. One dream shows a man and a woman cuddling in a bed, half-naked (no nudity is shown). A woman shows cleavage while doing some yoga. Romantic relationships are discussed and referenced.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Strong language includes a few instances of "f--king," "s--t," and "bitch."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Drinking, drugs & smoking.

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Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Hypnotic is a thriller about a depressed woman looking for help getting her life back on track. Having experienced a devastating loss, Jenn ( Kate Siegel ) agrees to see a therapist ( Jason O'Mara ) who specializes in hypnosis. But this therapist is not all that he seems. In this occasionally violent movie, women are hypnotized and then do things they don't consent to (and have no recollection of). Women pass out, have strange dreams about the man hypnotizing them, and imagine things (often terrifying things) that aren't there. Expect a fair amount of psychological and physical violence, psychological torment, moments of fear and peril, women behaving and doing things without their consent, gun violence, and stories of murder. There are some gruesome deaths, fist fights, stabbings, chokings, and mention of suicide. A woman discusses losing her child to a stillbirth at 6 months old. Some scenes feature rhythmic and bright flashing lights. Sex and intimate relationships are briefly talked about and referenced, and adults drink wine, beer, and whiskey. Strong language includes a few instances of "f--king," "s--t," and "bitch." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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• Parents say (1)
• Kids say (1)

Based on 1 parent review

What's the Story?

In HYPNOTIC, Jenn Tompson ( Kate Siegel ) is a smart but sad woman who is between jobs and relationships. Because of a traumatic incident from her recent past, Jenn is depressed and can't see a way out. But a friend suggests Jenn see her therapist, who did wonders for her. Jenn agrees, and immediately the therapist offers to hypnotize her. Jenn hesitates, but after just one session, she feels better. The only problem is that she can't remember anything. And what is up with her passing out? Her therapist tells her not to worry, but scary things start happening. How can she escape her predicament when she can't even control her own mind?

Is It Any Good?

The performances from this wonderful cast go well beyond the shallow script and illogical story. Slickly produced and coolly shot, Hypnotic is all surface. Without any depth to the characters or story, things seem to just happen, one after the next, rather than develop naturally. This lack of depth also makes the film feel like a connect-the-dots moving picture. No surprises here, no red herrings, subterfuge, no twists and turns. Further, the characters never complicate or go beyond their initial framework: sad/scared woman, best friend, scary doctor, good cop. Unfortunately, and despite Kate Siegel's great efforts otherwise, Jenn just never comes across as believable, likable, or interesting.

But most of this has to do with the writing of her character as completely useless, inept, and dumb. For example, comparing Jenn to Maddie from Hush (co-written by Siegel), provides stark contrast. While not a great movie either, at least Siegel's written work better realizes a woman protagonist who organically acts and reacts to a terrifying situation. It's shocking how little agency Jenn is given or has in this movie. When she does make a decision, it's almost always the wrong one, and often it's incredibly stupid, and particularly so because she is smart. But is she ? Yes, a male character does say Jenn is smart, but this seems to be the only evidence on offer, if, indeed, that itself even counts. For instance, once knowing how the villain triggers his victims, multiple women freely answer their phones, and always after clearly seeing "UNKNOWN CALLER" on their screens before answering. Further, once Jenn knows everything, not only does she go to "the cops" (quickly getting a meeting with a detective, who also, insanely, freely shares everything he knows about an old case that was never solved) successfully, she also (by herself and without protection or a plan) goes to the home of the villain to... who knows what the plan was. The villain is also a disappointment, primarily because of, again, his lack of depth. There's just not much to him.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about violence in thriller movies. Was the violence in Hypnotic realistic and believable? What was scarier or more thrilling: the physical violence or psychological violence?

What would you have done differently in Jenn's shoes?

Have you ever been hypnotized? If so, what was your experience like? If not, do you think you might ever try it? Why or why not?

Movie Details

• On DVD or streaming : October 27, 2021
• Cast : Kate Siegel , Jason O'Mara , Dule Hill , Lucie Guest
• Directors : Matt Angel , Suzanne Coote
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Bisexual actors, Black actors
• Studio : Netflix
• Genre : Thriller
• Run time : 89 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : February 17, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Hypnotic review: an overcomplicated sci-fi thriller

“Hypnotic is an ambitious but ultimately lackluster sci-fi thriller from director Robert Rodriguez and star Ben Affleck.”

• An admirably ambitious plot
• A memorable opening bank heist
• An overly serious tone
• On-the-nose writing throughout
• Too many mind-numbing exposition dumps

An eye opens. A pen taps against a notepad. These are images synonymous with the concept of hypnotism, so it only makes sense that they’re the first things viewers see in Hypnotic . The new film from Alita: Battle Angel and Spy Kids director Robert Rodriguez is a neo-noir thriller about a detective who finds himself trapped in a conspiracy involving a handful of powerful “hypnotics,” aka, people with the ability to alter others’ perceptions of reality. At least, that’s what Hypnotic appears to be on the surface.

There’s much more going on in Hypnotic than meets the eye — too much, in fact. The film, which Rodriguez has reportedly been tinkering with for around 20 years, is deeply indebted to the kind of brainy, puzzle box thrillers made by directors like Christopher Nolan ( Insomnia ) and Alex Garland ( Men ). Hypnotic , to its credit, wears its influences on its sleeve and even goes so far as to create images that feel like they could have been pulled straight out of Nolan’s 2010 blockbuster, Inception .

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The problem? Rodriguez is a far different director than Nolan, Garland, or any of the other contemporary filmmakers he tries to pay tribute to in Hypnotic . Rodriguez’s films have never been known for their narrative ingenuity or ambitious plots. He’s a scrappy filmmaker who works best when he’s producing lighthearted genre fare, which is why it’s so disappointing that everything in Hypnotic is played with such a straight face rather than a playful wink.

Based on a screenplay by Rodriguez and Max Borenstein, Hypnotic centers on Danny Rourke (Ben Affleck), an Austin police detective whose daughter, Minnie, was kidnapped several years prior to the events of the film. When he and his partner, Nicks (J. D. Pardo), get a tip one day about a potential bank robbery, their efforts to stop the heist are thwarted by Dellrayne (William Fichtner), a man who has the power to make others do whatever he wants, including kill themselves. Following his discovery of a mysterious clue, Affleck’s Rourke sets out to find Dellrayne in the belief that he may have the answers necessary to uncover the truth behind Minnie’s disappearance.

Along the way, Rourke crosses paths with Diana Cruz (Alice Braga), a small-time hypnotic whose relationship with Dellrayne may hold the key to tracking him down and stopping him. The further into his mission he gets, however, the more Rourke begins to question his own reality. Behind the camera, Rodriguez visualizes Rourke’s increasingly loose control of his senses via a series of action sequences in which the world seems to fold in on itself and the walls around him seem to bend and transform.

Despite their obvious debt to Inception , these moments of visual experimentation and disorientation help elevate many of Hypnotic ’s second-act set pieces. While the film’s contrast-heavy color filters often make it look far too much like a car commercial, too, Rodriguez succeeds at keeping Hypnotic ’s visual energy up even in the moments when its script seems to be on cruise control. Along with 2019’s Alita: Battle Angel , the film ranks squarely as one of Rodriguez’s most visually accomplished efforts in recent memory.

Narratively, Hypnotic is a multi-layered puzzle of a film that never quite hits the highs that it so clearly wants to. Part of that is due to the film’s overreliance on exposition dumps and Rodriguez’s unerringly clichéd, on-the-nose dialogue. Most of the film’s narrative issues, however, stem from its insistence on overexplaining every single one of its beats and third-act twists, of which there are many. The film makes less room for ambiguity than even the most exposition-heavy Christopher Nolan movie, a fact which only sucks even more of the life out of Hypnotic ’s overambitious story.

The film’s narrative missteps aren’t helped by how seriously it treats all of its twists. One game-changing moment in the film’s final third has the potential to be the kind of tongue-in-cheek turn that can lift an entire movie up from mediocrity to absurd fun, but Hypnotic fails to lean as far into the ridiculousness of its story as it should. Even Affleck, who brings his trademark smirk to some of Hypnotic ’s later scenes, gives a performance that feels too wooden to move the film far enough away from its own overly self-serious zone.

Affleck isn’t the only actor who’s left stranded in Hypnotic . Alice Braga, William Fichtner, and Jackie Earle Haley are all accomplished, charismatic performers, but none of them manage to strike the right tonal balance with their performances. Like her director, Braga plays Hypnotic ’s story with far too somber a tone for her character’s arc to be taken seriously. While Fichtner has the most fun of anyone in Hypnotic , too, he’s never on-screen long enough to get the chance to chew up the scenery as much as he might have liked.

These mistakes all connect back to Rodriguez’s own, fundamental misunderstanding of his strengths as a filmmaker. If Hypnotic is his attempt at playing in the same sandbox as directors like Garland, Nolan, and David Fincher, then it’s a reminder that he’s far more effective when he’s working in the same lane as directors like Avatar: The Way of Water ‘s James Cameron and Last Night in Soho ‘s Edgar Wright, both of whom are capable of bringing the kind of wry, winking attitude to their genre work that Hypnotic could have benefitted from. As it is now, the film isn’t so much mesmerizing as it is forgettable.

Hypnotic is now playing in theaters.

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2023 belonged to Christopher Nolan. The British auteur is on the verge of winning multiple Oscars for Oppenheimer, a three-hour biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist behind the atomic bomb. Nolan is on a shortlist of filmmakers whose name alone can sell a film. Take Inception as an example. A film about dream stealing with complicated ideas and confusing equations isn't an easy sell. Yet, an emotionally moving story and visually stunning effects wowed audiences, resulting in a $839 million worldwide gross and four Oscars.

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The first weekend in March saw the release of Dune: Part Two, Denis Villeneuve's epic sci-fi adventure film and the sequel to 2021's Dune. We pick up with Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), who have been assimilating into Fremen culture. While contemplating his messianic destiny, Paul seeks revenge against House Harkonnen for killing his father and destroying House Atreides. Only Paul can unite the Fremens and wage war on the Harkonnen. Yet, will he choose to do it?

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After several years of hype and anticipation, Dune is back. Denis Villeneuve's mammoth adaptation of the Frank Herbert novel of the same name has gotten the sequel treatment, and Dune: Part 2 is receiving many of the same plaudits and praise that Part 1 received when it was released in 2021. It grossed over $80 million in its opening weekend, and is on the path to outdo its predecessor.

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Disco Boy: Franz Rogowski is at his most haunted in this hypnotic, witchy brew

Debut director giacomo abbruzzese merges disparate stories into a mysterious cinematic adventure.

Franz Rogowski in Disco Boy

Following his indelible performances in Undine and Great Freedom, one might reasonably suppose that we had already viewed Franz Rogowski at his most haunted.

Prepare to be disabused of this idea. In Giacomo Abbruzzese’s electrifying debut, the soulful, shape-shifting German actor plays Aleksei, a young Belarusian, who makes a perilous trek through Europe to enlist in the Foreign Legion.

A sequence not unlike a more civilised rendition of the first part of Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket confirms the character’s commitment to his new life.

A continent away, Jomo, a young revolutionary in the Niger Delta, is fighting the multinationals that threaten his community and way of life. Away from the conflict, he loves to throw strange shapes with his sister and fellow insurrectionary guerrilla fighter, Udoka (essayed by Ivorian women’s activist Laetitia Ky).

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The dancing twinship between the heterochromatic Jomo and Udoka grafts a strange, visually hypnotic dimension on to an already witchy brew. During a conversation with a comrade, Jomo confesses that he would love to be a “disco boy”; his friend romantically describes an imagined life as a croupier.

Hélène Louvart’s outlandishly good-looking cinematography and Vitalic’s entrancing electronic score help to merge these disparate stories into a memorable collision. The infrared of the legionnaires’ collective vision makes for a nightmarish spectacle that bleeds into the supernatural third act.

Writer-director Abbruzzese was initially inspired by the similarities of bodily mastery required by soldier and dancer, a notion that his wildly imaginative, meticulously crafted script has embellished into the trippiest possible dance movie. The angular choreography feels bound to creepy, ancient tales of possessed limbs.

Aleksei’s masculinity, initially defined by rowdy football support and rigid army training, is continually challenged and transformed. Themes of imperialism and exploitation add background textures to three muscular performances and a mysterious cinematic adventure.

Tara Brady, a contributor to The Irish Times, is a writer and film critic

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‘Ripley’ Review: Andrew Scott’s Striking Netflix Series Pulls Off Its Own ‘Talented’ Twist

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This “Ripley” is a different animal. Related Stories How ‘We Were the Lucky Ones’ Steers Clear of Sepia-Toned Cliches Kyle MacLachlan Hopes Nobody Tries to Reboot ‘Twin Peaks’: ‘Don’t Touch That!’

First introduced in Highsmith’s 1955 novel “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” the title character is perhaps best known today (with apologies to bibliophiles with fond memories of the books and cinephiles who prefer “The American Friend” or “Purple Noon”) from Anthony Minghella’s 1999 film of the same name. Matt Damon stars as an American sent to Italy to retrieve a wealthy Manhattanite’s wayward son, but once he steps foot on the Boot’s sandy shores, the posh life in front of him proves irresistible, as does the golden boy (a positively gleaming Jude Law) he’s meant to bring home. A life of boating and beaching (or is it just beach ?) tantalize our New York lonely boy, but that’s before his deceitful seeds are given too much sun, and a crime of passion pushes him to seize increasingly illicit opportunities in order to maintain the life he covets.

Enter Herbert Greenleaf, the owner of a Long Island shipping company and a twice-too-trusting fool. Mr. Greenleaf’s son, Dickie (Johnny Flynn), has been living in Italy off a trust now inaccessible to his father, which poses a problem because the young man is simply too… happy. Boating by day, drinking by night, taking week-long trips to Rome, Naples, or wherever the wind carries him, Dickie is making the most of the life his father afforded him. Well, dear old dad has decided it’s time for the son he named after his penis to get back to work: He wants Dickie to return to New York and put in a few hours behind a desk by the docks, so he can take over the business when Herbie retires, thus preserving the family riches well into the future.

OK, Herbie didn’t say all that , but it’s not far off from what Tom hears — if he hears anything beyond “a paid trip to Italy where a minted mark awaits.” The narrative tracks established beats from there, albeit with a few twists. Unlike other tellings, this Tom always plans on stealing Dickie’s identity. That’s just who he is: A lifetime of lawbreaking keeps him on constant lookout for potential scores (like ripping off an affluent American abroad), just as it removes him from the practical sensibilities of upright citizens. While palling around with his “old friend” Dickie, Tom is quick to spot a fellow charlatan, yet he can’t comprehend why his well-off buddy might balk at, say, working with the Italian mob. Such a disconnect from reality applies to his personal life, as well, which is all but nonexistent. Tom’s sexual preferences, which were boiling over in Minghella’s searingly sexy “Talented Mr. Ripley,” play a part here, but as the series rolls out, they’re far less of an incentive.

Zaillian’s meticulous telling emphasizes the significance of key details. Everything from a streak of blood in a bathtub to an old pair of shoes is given ample weight almost entirely through the camera’s eye. But the approach also acknowledges the impact of sheer luck. Lingering close-ups build tension around possible oversights that could get Ripley caught, but they also show that no matter how well prepared you are, the actions of others are often indeterminable. So it helps that, aside from one eye-rolling reach near the end of the season, the cat-and-mouse game plays out convincingly, and each character is written in a way that feels true; their behavior as believable as it needs to be for you to go along with Ripley’s improbable gambits.

The term “cinematic” gets tossed around a lot these days, but “Ripley” provides the ideal interpretation: visual storytelling with a purpose, aided greatly by its hypnotic pacing, impeccable style, and a morbid sense of humor. There’s a sequence where Ripley is desperate for a hard day to finally end (a hard day, mind you, for a moneyed murderer). Each time he thinks it’s over, there’s another task to endure: a talkative boat owner with one eye out for Tom, a window cleaner slamming his sopping loofah into the glass by Tom’s head, a train conductor checking for tickets. All of these events are captured sans dialogue, and the unique mixture of tension and laughs evoked from Tom’s prolonged suffering is a credit to Zaillian’s symphonic compositions. On a broad level, his set-ups are smart. Shot by shot, the execution is methodical. All together, the splendor — which is doubly apparent in how “Ripley” captures Italy, from sculptures and paintings to vistas and beyond — is undeniable.

Ultimately, “Ripley” is a story of survival made possible by ruthlessness, cunning, and the privilege presumptions can afford. How Tom wields his identity as a handsome, white, American man is key to him getting away with everything he does. Some of what separates “Ripley” from other adaptations is obvious: its inspirations in Italian neorealism, its eight-hour runtime, Scott’s desensitized stare, etc. But another stroke of individuality — the empty interiority of our main character — at first feels like a glaring absence before becoming an inspiring twist. Zaillian’s telling may not feel as intensely alive as Minghella’s, but the cool disposition he brings to Ripley’s cynical, self-serving brutality — all so he can lead an empty life that only looks rich — speaks to the story’s sneakiest interpretation: the dangers of the disillusioned white man. And isn’t that the most dangerous animal of all?

“Ripley” premieres Thursday, April 4 on Netflix . All eight episodes will be available at once.

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