By Maria Bregman
You know that feeling when you watch a film and can’t quite decide if it’s brilliant or if you’ve just been tricked? That’s Hypnotic.
It’s the latest from Robert Rodriguez, a man who has spent the last thirty years making movies that feel like they were dreamt up by a hyperactive twelve-year-old with an unlimited budget. And I mean that as a compliment. Mostly.
This one has been gestating for two decades. Twenty years. That’s longer than some of the TikTok critics reviewing it have been alive. Rodriguez claims he wrote it back in 2002, which is convenient, because it means he can swear blind he didn’t rip off Christopher Nolan. But we’ll get to that.
The premise is pure pulp. Ben Affleck plays Danny Rourke, a detective with a gravelly voice and a missing daughter. He’s in therapy, obviously. He’s sad, obviously. Then a bank robbery goes weird. People start doing things they shouldn’t do. A woman takes her top off in the middle of the street to distract the guards. A security guard just hands over the money. It’s like everyone is moving to a silent beat.
Rourke finds a photo of his missing kid in a safety deposit box, and suddenly he’s chasing a “hypnotic” – a man who can reshape reality just by mumbling a few words.
It sounds ridiculous. It is ridiculous. But you keep watching.
The Ghost of Christopher Nolan
Here’s the elephant in the room. Or rather, the folding city in the room.
About twenty minutes in, the film takes a sharp left turn. We leave the gritty police procedural and enter a world where buildings bend, reality cracks, and people in red jumpsuits are constructing fake worlds on soundstages.
If you’ve seen Inception, you’ll be squinting. If you’ve seen The Truman Show, you’ll be nodding. It feels incredibly familiar.
But Rodriguez swears he had the idea first. He says this was his passion project before Nolan ever dreamed of spinning tops. It’s a hilarious thought – Rodriguez sitting in a cinema in 2010, watching Inception, and thinking, “Well, damn. There goes my third act.”
But unlike Nolan, who treats his puzzles with the seriousness of a physics lecture, Rodriguez just wants to have fun. Hypnotic doesn’t care if the science makes sense. It cares if it looks cool. It’s the B-movie version of a mind-bender. It’s Inception bought from a market stall – a bit rough around the edges, but it gets the job done.
Affleck’s “Face”
We need to talk about Ben Affleck.
He’s doing a specific thing here. It’s the same thing he did in Paycheck (another Philip K. Dick adaptation directed by John Woo, which Hypnotic also heavily resembles). He’s playing the confused, slightly beefy Everyman who is just trying to figure out why everyone is lying to him.
He spends a lot of the movie looking bewildered. It works. Affleck has a face that carries a kind of weary resignation perfectly. He anchors the madness. When William Fichtner – playing the villain with a delicious, snake-like charm – starts warping reality, Affleck’s grounded, grumpy presence stops the whole thing floating away.
The “Rodriguez” Factor
Why does this film work, when by all rights it should be a mess?
It’s because Rodriguez believes in it. He commits. The budget was reportedly $70 million, which is huge for an indie production (Rodriguez basically runs his own studio in Texas), but tiny compared to a Marvel movie. Yet he makes it look big. He uses practical effects, old-school camera tricks, and sheer enthusiasm to sell the illusion.
It’s a film about filmmaking. The “hypnotics” create constructs – fake realities – to trap people. Rodriguez is doing the same thing to us. He’s admitting that cinema is a con. It’s a magic trick.
There’s a joy in watching a director who just loves the medium. He’s not trying to win an Oscar. He’s trying to keep you in your seat for 90 minutes. And in an era of three-hour bloated epics, a tight, 90-minute thriller that knows exactly what it is? That’s refreshing.
Is Hypnotic a masterpiece? No. Is it derivative? Absolutely.
But it’s also a blast. It’s a throwback to the high-concept thrillers of the 90s. It’s the kind of movie you rent on a Friday night, eat a pizza to, and say, “That was weird,” before recommending it to your friends.
Don’t go in expecting logic. Go in expecting a ride. Let Rodriguez hypnotize you for a bit. Just don’t blame me if you wake up wanting to rob a bank.
Hypnotic is available to stream now.
