‘Hypnotic’ is proof that Robert Rodriguez needs to retire from Hollywood

I HATE ROBERT RODRIGUEZ.

I have no idea how this absolute HACK keeps getting movies and projects to helm. How. How? What does he know? What can he do that others cannot? What makes his filmmaking prowess so all-important that he, and only he, must persist? Is it blackmail? Does he blackmail people? Is it his dong? Is he a Hollywood juggalo? How?

So look, I get that he found early success with his films From Dusk Til Dawn (which I have seen and will admit is good), and the three Antonio Banderas movies titled the Mexico Trilogy are counted as good as well. I don’t know, I haven’t seen them. But his filmography is very, very weirdly full of middling children’s films: Shorts (2009), four (soon to be five) Spy Kids movies, a straight-to-Netflix film called We Can be Heroes, and my all time least favorite film: Sharkboy and Lavagirl. If anyone wants to torture me, you strap me to a chair and force me to watch that goddawful film on a loop until I beg for death. I bleed from my ears every time I have to listen to Taylor Lautner sing a white boy a fucking lullaby. And then and then and then Rodriguez goes and mucks up Book of Boba Fett with shit like this:

Remember when Adrian fucking Brody was in a Predator film? That was Rodriguez’s fault. Remember when the two Sin City movies left something to be desired? That was Rodriguez. And yeah, some of you will whine and tell me I’m wrong because Sin City was cool, and yeah, I admit that it was cool, but I am telling you right now if something went well, it is not because of Robert Rodriguez. However, if anything at all goes wrong, that is all Robert Rodriguez. 

Look. I’m not dumb. I know that films are complex, and despite really great casts and directors, films can still be stinky. I’m looking at Amsterdam with their star-studded cast, or David Lynch’s Dune, or Movie 43 with every single A-List Hollywood actor, or George Lucas’ Phantom Menace, or Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi. Sometimes, they don’t get it right. But for every The Last Jedi, there’s Knives Out, for every Phantom Menace, there’s American Graffiti. But Rodriguez? C’mon man. Now we’re just making excuses for this asshole. 

There’s a palpable taste of disdain left in my mouth after every time I watch anything he’s tainted. And the worst part is that I never fucking know he’s touched something until after I’ve finished suffering through it. Like when I saw this Ben Affleck movie called Hypnotic the other day. I thought it was pretty shit as it got going. Poor direction, lackluster script, expositional dialogue, weird use of yellow filter, and the fact that it said BANK over the entrance of a building inside of which a bank heist was to take place. I thought it was just shit filmmaking. A blunder.

It wasn’t. 

So this film Hypnotic is actually kind of a mystery. It’s got so many twists and turns in every other scene it’s ridiculous. The narrative whiplash you suffer at every turn is just dizzying. Cop Affleck has lost his daughter many years ago, and he’s only just returning to the force. His first case back is to stake out a bank heist after an anonymous call leaves a tip. There, Affleck spots an old white bad guy harassing a blonde woman, then speaking code to nearby guards. The woman strips and runs into the street as a distraction, then the guards and a bank teller engage in a heist. Meanwhile, Cop Affleck, who doesn’t go by the book, walks into the crime scene and tampers with the evidence- which turns out to be a photo of his daughter. Mystery! 

As the film goes on, he meets Alicia Braga, who tells him about hypnotics, people who have Jedi mind powers. She explains the movie’s lore to the audience while looking at Affleck, who looks very bored and not at all impressed that this woman just demonstrated that she’s basically Professor XXavier. Bored. They go on the run, and are cornered by the old white bad guy. Affleck demonstrates that he, too, has Jedi mind powers and turns the old guy’s cronies against him. AND THEN THEY WALK AWAY. 

So I thought that this movie was a lazy, lazy, plot-hole riddled mess up until this point. Then, one of fifteen twists shows that AKCHUALLY Affleck is in a mind-trap scenario run by the evil government, trying to use him to reveal where he’s hidden his daughter, who’s the most powerful macguffin who ever was a distressed damsel. Plot plot plot, bang bang bang, two or three more twists, and Affleck, his daughter, and Braga (revealed to be his double agent wife) ride a helicopter into the sunset. 

At that big plot twist, I actually thought that there could be a modicum of depth to this film. The reason it said BANK over the bank was because it was literally just a movie set designed to trick Affleck. The script was blocky because all the people he met were literally just evil secret agent actors. It was a trick. So at this point, I think, ‘huh. Maybe… maybe?’ I am rejuvenated. I have stopped laughing. I have hope in the film once again. The climax is a flat-angled, predictable cobweb of deus ex machinas, Affleck standing there looking creepy, more plot twists, and an unexplained introduction of two old people with shotguns who outgun a squadron of heavily armed government agents. And then this movie had the absolute gall to bait us with a sequel.

Hypnotic has a decently interesting concept. What if the world was full of people who could do telekinesis? What if there was an inception-style telekinesis mindtrap? I think that this film had legs, and really deserved a competent, risk-taking director. Someone who could not only master the basics of big-budget filmmaking, but also introduce intelligent, thought-out, logical progressions to the plot. Someone who could inspire their actors to do more than the abhorrent performance I saw from Affleck. Someone who is not Robert Rodriguez. I hate Robert Rodriguez.

2/10.

There’s a black cowboy with an eyepatch in this movie. I mean. What?

You can rent or stream Hypnotic from most streaming services. But you should not.