REVIEW | Ben Affleck's reality-bending Hypnotic isn't terrible, it's just utterly forgettable

Determined to find his missing daughter, Austin detective Danny Rourke (Ben Affleck) instead finds himself spiralling down a rabbit hole while investigating a series of reality-bending bank robberies where he will ultimately call into question his most basic assumptions about everything and everyone in his world. Aided by Diana Cruz (Alice Braga), an unnervingly gifted psychic, Rourke simultaneously pursues and is pursued by a lethal spectre (William Fichtner) - the one man he believes holds the key to finding the missing girl - only to discover more than he ever bargained for.

The mid-budget blockbuster is making a slow comeback to our cinemas, once greedily stamped out by the big-budget CGI blockbusters and franchises as they head straight to streaming. Surprisingly, Hypnotic is making its debut on the big screen, reminiscent of those standalone A-lister films of the 2000s where flashy concepts and big names were peddled to audiences to get them in the seats. Led by Ben Affleck and directed and co-written by Robert Rodriguez, Hypnotic uses a pseudo-science version of hypnosis to craft a tale of twists where nothing is as it seems. And when you know that from the start, it loses any sense of surprise and intrigue.

Marketed as a heist film, Affleck plays a detective whose daughter was abducted and never found. Called onto the scene of a potential heist, he runs into a powerful hypnotic - a person with a rare skill to hypnotise people on the spot. As his life turns upside down again, he must unravel the mystery of the hypnotic's connection to his missing daughter.

The film borrows certain stylistic elements from Christopher Nolan's Inception, warping reality around its characters who are never sure of their own minds. This cinematic device might have been a powerful trump card to play if the mechanics of hypnotics were kept under wraps in the trailer, but unfortunately, the audience is already hyper-aware from the start to expect a few twists and turns. To Rodriguez's credit, this is at least done at an even pace and doesn't turn into a spiralling rabbit hole that would erode the cohesion of the plot.

It's not the kind of film you would expect from the Sin City director's oeuvre, but he's never been one for subtlety and loves cramming his work with expositions so that the audience never has to do much heavy lifting. Hypnotic crafts a world where the human brain is capable of impossible things, yet at its core is a film about a parent who will do anything for their child. The themes are kept pretty simple and the dialogue even simpler, making it utterly forgettable in the long run until you stumble upon it again as a Saturday night feature on TV.

Affleck tackles the role of a heartbroken detective less than seriously, but he gives it enough of his talents to make it watchable. His character isn't given the opportunity to go deeper on an emotional level, but the film overall never does, except by having actors stare intensely at each other. Alongside Affleck, we have Alice Braga, who plays a tarot reader and fellow hypnotic on the run from the main villain, and teams up with the detective to take him down. Somewhat of a character actor that tends to play tough women, Braga also gives the role exactly what's required and not much more, and her chemistry with Affleck is on the Cavill and Adams level of heat - not quite dead but also not quite blazing. The real leading star of the movie was the concept, and everything else just served to build it from the ground up.

Hypnotic isn't a completely terrible film, especially as a standalone with no ties to a franchise. It just didn't have a good enough hook to have a lasting impact. Rodriguez doesn't leave any lingering questions, everything is explained eventually, and there's even a post-credits scene to wrap up any other doubts about the film's conclusion. It spoonfeeds the audience as much as possible, and perhaps a little more mystery would have forced the audience to engage with it more, but instead, they are kept at arm's length to enjoy it only at a pure entertainment level.

WATCH THE TRAILER HERE: