Hypnotic

Year: 2023

Actors: Ben Affleck, Jeff Fahey, Alice Braga, William Fichtner

Duration: 93 min

Danny Rourke, an Austin Police Department detective, recalls to his therapist the abduction of his seven-year-old daughter, Minnie, which led to the dissolution of his marriage. Afterwards, he is picked up by his partner, Nicks, who informs him they have received an anonymous tip-off call that a safe deposit box at a bank will be robbed. At the stakeout, they witness a mysterious man give unheard instructions to civilians, bank employees, and fellow policemen, who seemingly follow his commands as he enters the bank. Rourke races to the targeted safe deposit box, finding inside it a picture of Minnie with the message "Find Lev Dellrayne" written on it. Rourke pursues the man to a rooftop, where he witnesses him command two police officers to shoot each other as he escapes. Convinced the heist has something to do with the disappearance of his daughter, Rourke investigates. Trace run by Nicks on the tip-off call leads Rourke to the address of fortune-teller Diana Cruz. After he describes to her the man from the bank heist, a client of Cruz's, under the control of that man, drives a motorcycle through Cruz's window before killing himself. Rourke takes Cruz into protective custody. She explains that the mysterious man from the bank is named "Lev Dellrayne" and that he and Cruz are both the escaped "Hypnotics": powerful hypnotists trained by a secretive government "Division" to control people's minds. Rourke is mysteriously immune to such mind control when Cruz tries to exercise it on him. Meanwhile, Dellrayne outside the police station commands Nicks to attack Rourke and Cruz, and Cruz then shoots him dead in self-defense. Rourke and Cruz flee to Mexico. There, they learn from a former Division contact Jeremiah that Dellrayne is seeking "Domino", a powerful weapon developed by the Division, stolen, and hidden by Dellrayne when he escaped. Dellrayne then wiped his own memory and left behind "triggers" prompting him to gradually recall Domino's location and regain his own hypnotic power. Dellrayne eventually reveals himself to be Jeremiah in disguise and pursues Rourke and Cruz through a hypnotically constructed environment before Rourke taps into his own previously unknown hypnotic power, allowing them to escape. Rourke and Cruz seek out River, a reclusive Division hacker, who discovers Rourke's wife, Vivian, in Division's database. Later, Rourke investigates River's database himself, and discovers that Minnie is Domino, the daughter of two powerful hypnotics: Rourke and Cruz (who is revealed to be Vivian). As "Cruz" interrupts him, Rourke realizes that the room and all of the events up to this point have been hypnotic constructs. He wakes up in a large room populated by Division agents, all of whom he has seen throughout the constructed story, including Nicks and "Dellrayne." Vivian and "Dellrayne" explain that Rourke and Vivian are both hypnotics, and their daughter Minnie was born and raised within the Division, but that he escaped with her to stop her from becoming their weapon. Hiding her and then wiping his memory, Rourke no longer remembers where she is, and the Division has been putting him through constructs of the search for her to make him remember. Rourke is plugged back into the construct, where he repeats the session with his therapist and the stakeout at the bank heist. However, Rourke soon escapes using his own powers and flees as the Division realizes that "Find Lev Dellrayne" refers not to a person but "Deer Valley Lane": the location of a ranch where Rourke's foster parents have been hiding Minnie. Rourke arrives at the ranch and is reunited with Minnie, who is now aged three years and is in full control of her hypnotic powers. The Division surrounds the ranch, but it is all revealed to be another construct of Minnie's creation. Minnie restores Vivian's memories that she was involved in Rourke and Minnie's escape and that her memory was subsequently wiped so that when Minnie would be powerful enough to defeat the entire Division at once, Vivian could unwittingly lead them to her. Minnie forces the Division agents to kill each other, and she, her parents, and Rourke's foster parents celebrate their new-found freedom. In a mid-credits' scene, "Dellrayne" is revealed to have survived the shoot-out, having constructed Rourke's foster-father to look like him during the fight with Minnie.

Genre: Action   Mystery   Thriller