Stars: Ben Affleck, Alice Braga, William Fichtner, Jd Pardo, Jeff Fahey, Sandy Avila, Hala Finley, Ionie Nieves, Nikki Dixon | Written by Robert Rodriguez, Max Borenstein | Directed by Robert Rodriguez
Ben Affleck stars in this mind-bending sci-fi thriller from co-writer / director (and co-cinematographer / editor) Robert Rodriguez. Essentially ripping off Inception, only on a fraction of that film’s budget, it’s a fast-paced rug-puller that’s almost gleefully nonsensical. In a good way.
Affleck plays Detective Rourke, who’s introduced getting hypnosis therapy, because he isn’t over the trauma of his losing his young daughter Minnie (Ionie Nieves) after she was kidnapped from a playground when he looked away for a second. A period of time has passed and Minnie’s body has never been found, so when Rourke finds a photo of her while investigating a mysterious bank robbery case, he becomes convinced that the culprit, Dellrayne (William Fichtner), knows her whereabouts.
Ben Affleck stars in this mind-bending sci-fi thriller from co-writer / director (and co-cinematographer / editor) Robert Rodriguez. Essentially ripping off Inception, only on a fraction of that film’s budget, it’s a fast-paced rug-puller that’s almost gleefully nonsensical. In a good way.
Affleck plays Detective Rourke, who’s introduced getting hypnosis therapy, because he isn’t over the trauma of his losing his young daughter Minnie (Ionie Nieves) after she was kidnapped from a playground when he looked away for a second. A period of time has passed and Minnie’s body has never been found, so when Rourke finds a photo of her while investigating a mysterious bank robbery case, he becomes convinced that the culprit, Dellrayne (William Fichtner), knows her whereabouts.
- 5/26/2023
- by Matthew Turner
- Nerdly
Drawing inspiration from The Matrix, Edge of Tomorrow, and, especially, Christopher Nolan’s Memento and Inception, Robert Rodriguez’s sci-fi neo-noir Hypnotic is less homage than a faded copy of a copy. Rodriguez and co-writer Max Borenstein certainly aren’t the first filmmakers to recycle a high-concept idea. But for a film so explicitly concerned with the reshaping of reality, Hypnotic’s utter failure to present a world that feels remotely convincing or fleshed out is a source of constant distraction. And while a couple of its myriad twists are clever enough, the film is often more mind-numbing than mind-bending.
Hypnotic opens with urban police officer Danny Rourke (Ben Affleck) mourning the kidnapping of his seven-year-old daughter, Minnie (Ionie Nieves), whose abductor, once caught, claims no memory of his actions or her whereabouts. Something is off about the whole incident, the details of which are replayed for the audience via...
Hypnotic opens with urban police officer Danny Rourke (Ben Affleck) mourning the kidnapping of his seven-year-old daughter, Minnie (Ionie Nieves), whose abductor, once caught, claims no memory of his actions or her whereabouts. Something is off about the whole incident, the details of which are replayed for the audience via...
- 5/11/2023
- by Derek Smith
- Slant Magazine
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