Not Quite Mesmerizing: Robert Rodriguez's "Hypnotic"
" Affleck! You da bomb in Phantoms, yo !" Jason Mewes (well, Kevin Smith, if we’re being honest), Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back... dunno how Jay'd feel about his boy in Hypnotic . Full disclosure: I really like Robert Rodriguez’s work. He is, at best, a really good storyteller; his family fare is engaging and his more outre, gonzo stuff is as the kids say, “awesome”…until it’s not. The critical faculties kick in and either Rodriguez is trafficking in ambiguity or scenes that are intended to be earnest and/or sincere, elicit snickers and sometimes barely stifled belly laughs. From me, anyway (and I like his work!) Hypnotic is his latest release and out of deference to the filmmaker’s request, I won’t go into spoiler territory. As Robert said in his introduction, it is “twisty” but more in the sense of curlicues as opposed to spirals of ingenuity and plot turns. It is, and I mean this in the best possible way, a pulpmeister’s version of Inception . In fact, chances are go