The Robert Rodriguez-Directed Ben Affleck Vehicle Hypnotic is a Gloriously Idiotic Exercise in High-Concept Self-Parody

this motion picture was VERY silly!

In “I’ll Sue Ya”, a Rage Against the Machine pastiche “Weird Al” Yankovic recorded for his 2006 album Straight Outta Lynwood the singer/national treasure hijacks Zack de la Rocha’s righteous howl to play a proud filer of frivolous lawsuits who delights in clogging up our legal system with irrelevant nonsense. 

The singer humble-brags, “I sued Neiman Marcus 'cause they put up their Christmas decorations way out of season/I sued Ben Affleck aw, do I even need a reason?” 

When the song was released Affleck was a walking punchline whose recent stinkers included such all-timers as Gigli, Surviving Christmas, Jersey Girl and Elektra. 

Affleck was the doofus who peaked early with Good Will Hunting then flamed out just as precociously with high-profile flops, trips to rehab to battle an addiction to alcohol and romantic relationships that tested all of our patience, particularly the media construct known as Bennifer. 

2006 also marked the modest beginning of what would become a truly impressive comeback. Affleck got good reviews for Hollywoodland and Smokin’ Aces. The next year Affleck was officially back thanks to his stellar work co-writing, directing and starring in a well-received adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s novel Gone, Baby, Gone. 

In the ensuing years Affleck has reclaimed his A-list status with classy projects like The Town, Argo, Gone Girl and The Last Duel yet he has retained his meme status largely through his iconic love of Dunkin’ Donuts, embodiment of Boston and relationship with Jennifer Lopez, which was recently rebooted for an older, more mature and less hysterical audience. 

Affleck may have gotten classy but I am very happy that you weird, supportive and deeply appreciated individuals chose the transcendently trashy Affleck vehicle Hypnotic over Fast X and Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3. 

To be brutally honest, I’m going to be doing a project for this beautiful newsletter and also Fatherly where I watch and write about all ten of the films in the Fast and the Furious franchise and time management is INCREDIBLY important in my life right now. Time and money are the primary two things I do not have and desperately need. 

But I’m glad you forced me to see this stupid movie because it was so terrible I kind of loved it. Hypnotic is the best kind of bad movie for me in large part because Affleck engages in glorious self-parody throughout. 

The classy thespian Ben Affleck has been unceremoniously replaced by a macho hack who talks with a Clint Eastwood/Bruce Wayne rasp and behaves throughout like an over-the-top caricature of a tough cop who plays by his own rules but gets results. 

Affleck plays Danny Rourke, a hotshot detective in the Austin Police Department. He’s part of a task force devoted to ensuring that Austin remains weird, but not TOO weird.

Danny is all about maintaining a perfect level of weirdness for Austin before his seven year old daughter is abducted. Then one day the troubled detective encounters a mysterious figure known as Dellrayne (William Fichtner, in the William Fichtner role). 

Dellrayne has a mysterious power over people. He’s a regular Dr. Caligari uniquely skilled at getting strangers to do his sinister bidding using a series of cryptic code words. 

I am a Fichtner fan. I feel like there are three contemporary actors bringing us the Christopher Walken energy that we both crave and angrily demand. They are, in order of Walknenness, Kevin Corrigan, Michael Shannon and William Fichtner. 

Fichtner looks a little like Walken. They’re also handsome in a sinister, very WASP manner. Heck, they even have similar cadences. But what really sets Walken and Fichtner apart is their inveterate otherworldliness, that sense that there’s a planet where people who look and talk like Walken and Fichtner come from but it sure isn’t earth. 

The doctor’s investigation into the possible role that Dellrayne might have played in the role of his daughter’s disappearance leads him to join forces with Diana Cruz (Alice Braga), a fortune teller with remarkable mental powers. 

The sexy psychic with the spooky connection to the spirit world hips Affleck’s scrambled shamus to the existence of a mysterious, dangerous group known as Hypnotics who possess the ability to control other people using their minds. 

Hypnotic eventually coalesces into an oddly somber, delirious cross between Inception and The X-Men. Nothing is at it seems in the world of Hypnotics because they can use their amazing powers to control other’s perceptions. 

This leads to a few chintzy special effects sequences Rodriguez seems in a hurry to get through before what appears to be a very limited budget runs out. 

For the most part Rodriguez is content to rip off Marvel’s mutated brainchildren with off-brand X-Men who all seem to have the same boring mental powers. 

If this all sounds extremely silly, that’s because it is. The world of Hypnotic is only slightly more adult and mature than that of The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D and that story was literally dreamed up by one of Rodriguez’s small children. 

We need to understand a universe’s rules in order to be emotionally invested in it. With Hypnotic the rules change according to the needs of any individual scene and it’s impossible to care about these one-dimensional characters when the rug is constantly being pulled out from under us. 

Affleck sinks gloriously to the level of the material, leading to an unintentional camp riot that feels less like an actual motion picture than a throwaway parody of the ultimate high-concept science-fiction nonsense that somehow got made into a 93 minute film. 

I enjoyed Hypnotic but nothing about it demands to be seen in a theater, particularly sub-par production values it unsuccessfully tries to hide with darkness. It’s every bit as stupid and ridiculous as it sounds and isn’t weighed down with anything in the way of self-awareness. I had a lot of fun laughing at it but at least I was enjoying a steady stream of unintentional guffaws. 

Two and a half out of four stars