Jamie
What a journey with our boy Hypnotic. You would think a wide release Robert Rodriguez film starring Ben Affleck released in May would be available on every corner for our BMT pleasure. Wrong. Even seven months later the film was not out on DVD. What a crock! This is not total cinema. This isn’t even partial cinema! What are you up to, Robert Rodriguez? But ultimately you can tell what he was up to just by looking at the credits of the film. This was a Rodriguez family affair, much like the Patriots are now a Belichick family affair. I’m not sure he much cared where this film was available. Does the film exist? Was his family employed in its making? Yes? Well then, mission accomplished.
To recap, Ben Affleck is a police officer (or is he?) recovering from the kidnapping of his daughter (or is he?) who is back on the job (or is he?) tracking an impending robbery of a bank safe deposit box (or is… enough of that). At the robbery he gets the feeling he knows that something’s off and gets to the box and finds a message “Find Lev Dellrayne.” A man, Dellrayne himself, was the orchestrator of the robbery and tries killing Ben before making an escape. The tip for the robbery came from a hypnotist that Ben teams up with. He finds out about a secret group of hypnotics who can make you believe things are happening for their own devices. They end up going on the run when Dellrayne, the most powerful hypnotic in the world, turns both friends and foes against them. There is some MacGuffin that they want, but really they want to find answers and that comes in the form of a hacker named River. That’s because once Ben is seeing all the info that River uncovers he has an epiphany… none of anything in the film is real. It’s all hypnotic bullshit (what a twist). Turns out his daughter was the progeny of him (also a powerful hypnotic) and the hypnotic he teamed up with. When the government wanted to start using her as a weapon, Ben hid her away and erased his memory. He’s been in a never ending cycle of hypnosis as they try to figure out what “Find Lev Dellrayne” means. But Ben is able to break the cycle this time and heads out to a ranch where his daughter has come of age and has full control of her powers. Teamed back up with his wife and daughter they defeat the agency and escape (or do they? (They don’t, but it doesn’t matter cause there won’t be a sequel (or will there be? (there won’t)))). THE END.
This is as close as we’re going to get to M. Night Shyamalan Presents: Twist: The Movie. Right from the opening, where a therapist methodically taps her pencil against a pad of paper, you can’t help but think, “None of this is real.” So then, when other events, characters, objects enter the swirling orbit of the amorphous (and terrible looking) film, you just sigh. “I get it, speed it up,” was my thought every 5-10 minutes. It’s not at all surprising that Rodriguez talks candidly about how his children did VFX, music, editing, etc. on the film. Certainly looks and sounds that way. I don’t blame him, really. Making a movie seems pretty darn hard and making it with your family would probably make it more enjoyable, but the product will probably suffer (and it did). So all this led to the greatest crime a BMT film can commit. By the time Jeff Fahey showed up on screen I was so over the film that I didn’t even look to see if there was a motorcycle for him to have sex on or a lawnmower for him to push. Booooooooo.
Hot Take Clam Bake! In a post credit stinger we see that William Fitchner hasn’t died, but rather tricked people into killing Jeff Fahey instead. This promises a sequel, right? Wrong! Jeff Fahey didn’t die (you idiots). He’s actually the main character and the titular Hypnotic (you dopes). You didn’t get that? (What dummies). Jeff Fahey? International superstar? Didn’t you see “Ben Affleck” riding a motorcycle in the film. Didn’t that strike you as odd given Jeff Fahey’s history with motorcycles? (Stupid idiots) What’s hypnosis but a mental form of virtual reality. They claimed that they went Beyond Cyberspace for Lawnmower Man 2 but they were wrong. THIS is Lawnmower Man 2 (fucking dumb dumbs). Obviously, Jobe’s War?… get it?… Dellrayne is Jobe. Jobe is Dellrayne. (you dumb idiot stupidheads). Hot Take Temperature: Woman of Desire.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about too-jacked Ben Affleck looking like a triangle and making low-rent Inception? Let’s go!
Oh boy is this movie a mess.
Affleck seems completely checked out, which is almost certainly because this was a random movie he did to keep himself in the mix as a headliner while he was (presumably) directing and acting in Air, a far more financially worthwhile film.
The concept of the film is interesting for about five seconds before they botch it. Kind of cool: a villain who hypnotizes people to make them commit crimes for him. It is almost a Batman villain (wait, Batman? Affleck? Talk to me people!).
Not cool: a secret society of hypnotists who can actually create elaborate inception like worlds and convince people that they aren’t who they think they are because two of the hypnotists had a baby who is a super hypnotist who can like … kill the world or something?
But this movie did deliver one thing that make me forgive everything: Jeff Fahey. Let the Fahey-ssaince begin!!
For real though. Parts of this film look kind of cool. Parts of it are interesting. But mostly it is a whole lotta nothing produced by a director who is quickly being known for producing a whole lotta nothing.
And that director also has officially made his productions a family affair and that experiment is so far off to a rocky start.
The only surprised about this film was that it was released to enough theaters to qualify. Bizarre.
You would think there would be more product placement for a film like this, but I just looked it up and there is surprisingly little and nothing really of note. I do like a true blue MacGuffin (Why?) involving the search for the secret daughter. And the obvious Worst Twist (How?) where the entire film is (obviously) a hypnosis, because why the hell not. This movie is complete trash, Bad through and through.
Oh boy, you best believe I’m completely undoing this movie with the classic sequel opening twist. Patent pending. Cheerios,
The Sklogs
Bad Movie Twins 