Movie Review: Hypnotic

 

Ever heard of Solstice Studios? Unless you're completely plugged-in into the business side of Hollywood, the answer is almost certainly no. Anyways, Solstice was a film studio that was trying to do something exceptionally difficult: become a functional mid-sized distributor in modern day Hollywood. This is a space that is now solely occupied by Lionsgate after MGM got officially bought out by Amazon and STX-who had been in financial ruin for several years-pivoted to becoming a production company after being taken over by a new group of investors last summer. Basically, the brutal combination of trying to launch a company during the COVID lockdown and a couple of really questionable business decisions (going all-in on making the Russell Crowe road rage thriller Unhinged the 1st new movie released when movie theaters re-opened in most of the US in late August 2020, spending $10+ mil on acquiring the Mark Wahlberg vehicle Joe Bell after it debuted at the 2020 Toronto Film Festival) kneecapped them before they had to a chance to even get both feet on the ground. 

Aside from Unhinged, Solstice produced just one other film before they folded and that was Hypnotic. Some might argue that their $65-75 million investment in this sci-fi mystery thriller from Robert Rodriguez was their most crucial misstep as a company as they didn't clearly didn't have the capital to be producing movies that carried that high of a price tag. What saved Hypnotic from ending up in limbo for an especially long time (it was filmed in the fall of 2021) was the convenient fact that executive producer Gareth West has his own distribution label called Ketchup Entertainment that specializes in small indie/VOD releases that could step up and put the movie in theaters. All things considered, Hypnotic dying alongside its former distributor would've likely been a better outcome for the resumes of everyone involved with making it.

Hypnotic has been framed as a passion project for Rodriguez-which is really hard to believe unless that passion was for making a movie that runs almost exclusively on exposition and plot twists. This alleged labor of love tells the tale of Austin cop Danny Roarke (Ben Affleck in his stiffest and most unengaged performances in ages) who is reeling after the recent kidnapping of his daughter (Hala Finley). Shortly after returning to the line of duty, he's summoned to a bank robbery where he encounters a strange man (William Fitchner) that appears to have orchestrated the heist on a whim and finds a photo of his daughter with an indecipherable message written under it in a safe deposit box at the scene of the crime. Upon meeting with a psychic (Alice Braga) who called in the robbery before it happened, Roarke learns that the man he saw at the bank is actually part of a group of a powerful hypnotists called "Hypnotics" who are capable of manipulating people into seeing and doing anything that that they want them to and his daughter might be the key to a vast conspiracy the Hypnotics are trying to pull off. With an army of Hypnotics on his trail, Roarke must get to the bottom of things before its too late for both him and his daughter. 

I've been a big fan of Rodriguez's for a long time and this is the first time I've ever seen a movie of his where it felt like he was completely lost. While the Spy Kids movies aren't exactly terrific pieces of cinema, they are at least clear representations of the vision that he had for them. Here, he appears to be aiming to make something like Inception and yet sidelines all of the stylish visuals (Hypnotic looks flat and cheap throughout), slick action sequences and inspiring DIY passion he's known for that could've allowed him to do so in favor of standing by idly while all the aforementioned exposition and plot twists attempt to make all of the nonsense this story throws out there seem coherent and clever. Newsflash: this strategy doesn't work as Hypnotic comes across as nothing but idiotic and bland every step of the way. How a seasoned filmmaker thought he could cover up a movie that lacks any sort of personality or commitment to selling its intriguing sci-fi mystery hook by having its characters relentlessly explain the mythology of the Hypnotics and delivering a barrage of "shocking" plot twists in the final act is a bigger, bleaker mindfuck than anything that actually happens in Hypnotic.     

If Hypnotic wasn't so deeply silly, fast-moving and mercifully short (it clocks in at 93 minutes with credits), there's a good chance it would've morphed into a massive trainwreck instead of the relatively small one it ends up being. Rodriguez is too creative and singular of a cinematic voice to be churning out uninspired shit like Hypnotic and hopefully his next passion project will be a better representation of the lively filmmaker he truly is.  

Grade: C-