Hypnotic ★★★

THE American thriller Hypnotic jumps around genres but manages to pull everything together in a fairly successful way.

Director Robert Rodriguez has worked across many genres but this time he pulls together mystery, thriller, action and science-fiction for the type of film you usually associate with the likes of Christopher Nolan.

Hypnotics is nowhere near as grand as Inception or Tenet but it presents interesting concepts that create both interest and suspense.

Ben Affleck plays Danny Rourke, an Austin police detective, in therapy following the abduction of his still missing young daughter some years ago and the resulting end of  his marriage.

We then join Rourke and his partner watching a bank as a result of an anonymous it’s going to be robbed.

They witness a man via the bank’s cameras speaking to police guards and then being given access to the safety deposit boxes.

They dash into the bank and the man takes off with Rourke’s partner in pursuit. Inside the deposit box the man was seeking Rourke finds a picture of his missing daughter and a cryptic note that just reads ‘Find Lev Dellrayne’.

On a nearby rooftop they think the man has been cornered but he commands the two uniform officers to turn their guns on each other and escapes by jumping off the building.

Rourke’s investigation brings him into contact with a fortune-teller, played by Alice Braga, and a mysterious and powerful government conspiracy that will either lead Rourke’s to his daughter or his death.

The interesting supporting cast also includes Jeff Fahey, Jackie Earle Haley and William Fichtner in the role of a mysterious stranger that he does so well.

It’s good to see Rodriguez, who made an early name for himself with the El Mariachi trilogy and From Dusk ‘til Dawn, doing something other than Spy Kids movies or Disney sci-fi television series.