If the trailer for Robert Rodriguez’s upcoming psychological thriller Hypnotic, which was released on Monday ahead of the film’s theatrical premiere next, could be described in a single sentence, it would be: What if Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure and Christopher Nolan’s Inception had a baby? Also, what if William Fichtner (Drive Angry, The Dark Knight) had evil psychic powers?
The film stars Ben Affleck as Daniel Rourke, a police detective struggling with the abduction of his daughter. When Rourke is called in to investigate a series of mysterious bank robberies in which the culprits all seem to have been put under hypnotic suggestion, he inadvertently unearths a clandestine government program connected to a sinister homicidal criminal (William Fichtner) with the ability to warp people’s perceptions of time and space. With the aid of a gifted psychic (Alice Braga), Rourke races to catch the true culprit before he causes anyone any more harm, but can he even be certain whose side he’s on any more? Does he even have a daughter? Is this film even real?
In any case, the trailer looks appropriately trippy, explosive, and exciting. William Fichtner playing a cross between Cure’s Kunio Mamiya and Jessica Jones’ Kilgrave is worth the price of admission alone, but combine that with hard-boiled Ben Affleck performance and Robert Rodriguez-style action sequences, and Hypnotic might just have the makings of one of this year’s biggest surprises. Or it could all be an illusion, though. We’ll just have to see for ourselves when Hypnotic premieres in theaters on May 12.