Robert Rodriguez is famous in the American movie business for doing things his way. He keeps his budgets down by doing much of the work himself – he writes, he directs, he produces, he does his own camera-work and editing.
He even owns his own studio in Austen Texas, complete with elaborate backlot sets. All that cool independence means some big names want to work with him.
Ben Affleck is just the latest of a long line of Rodriguez buddies over the years, ranging from Quentin Tarentino and Antonio Banderas to George Clooney and Johnny Depp.
Ben Afleck Photo: Solstice Studios; Ingenious Media; Studio 8; Double R Productions
I guess they’re hoping some of that Texas cool rubs off on them. I can’t believe they’re doing it on the strength of scripts like Hypnotic.
At the start of Hypnotic we meet burnt-out cop Danny Rourke – Ben Affleck – who’s in therapy after the tragic, mysterious death of his young daughter.
Her murderer had no memory of the crime. But Danny hopes that getting back to work will help him get over this.
The cops get a tipoff that a downtown bank is about to be robbed. And Danny spots how – a mysterious chap loiters round the front entrance of the bank whispering to certain random people.
You know, like he’s hypnotizing them or something.
It’s been ages since I’ve seen such an old-fashioned, B-movie setup like this – a criminal mastermind seems to be getting ordinary people to do his dirty work for him.
Call it nostalgia, but I found myself going with Hypnotic for a while. Certainly, more than I usually do with Rodriguez’s Grindhouse movies.
Our hero Danny is shocked when supervillain Dellrayne gets away with the mysterious contents of the bank’s safe deposit box.
But at least now he has a clue. The original tip off was given by someone called Diane. So, Danny goes calling.
Diane is played by Brazilian star Alice Braga, and she soon finds herself trapped in a bog-standard, Robert Rodriguez role – looking sexy while delivering increasingly ludicrous exposition.
It’s her job to explain to Danny that the crime was committed by a so-called “Hypnotic”.
In neo-noir thrillers the temptation is always to favour intricate plots over character, and that’s pretty much what happens here.
If Rodriguez had simply stayed with our hero chasing the villainous Dellrayne, falling for the enigmatic Diane along the way, all might have been OK.
But Rodriguez wanted to make something less pedestrian. What is this – a 1960 Roger Corman movie or something?
So, he starts to add increasingly complex twists and turns, like a low-rent Christopher Nolan film.
There’s a “What’s going on?” reaction to most Rodriguez movies that kicks in after a while. This one’s spurred by an unexpected photo of Danny’s late daughter. What’s it doing there? And why is everyone behaving so strangely?
It’s as if everyone Danny and Diane meet has been altered hypnotically, like you can’t believe anyone or anything you see.
That reaction happens a good half an hour in – quite late for a Rodriguez movie, in fact. But shortly afterwards, it’s succeeded by another reaction – “oh for heaven’s sake” – as the plot switches and reverses, and then suddenly….
Well frankly you don’t want to know what suddenly happens, except to say it’s remarkably stupid. As stupid as only a stupid person who thinks he’s being amazingly clever can be.
The frustrating thing about Rodriguez films – from El Mariachi and From Dusk To Dawn to the truly horrible Sin City – is he’s technically very gifted. Particularly when you consider how low he keeps his budgets.
His camera-work, his editing, the music, even the acting are usually pretty sharp, I suppose. But it’s all in the service of something pointless.
People like to describe Rodriguez’s films as “rock and roll”, but it’s the worst sort of rock and roll. The ones with flashy, endless solos, songs with no hooks, rock-stars with no charm, sound and fury and not much else.
Even people who think they like this sort of thing are going to find themselves checking their watches long before Hypnotic is over. You’re getting sleepy, so sleepy…
