“What you see isn't real.”
No kidding. Remember this when you see scenes unfold.
Police detective Danny Rourke (Ben Affleck; “Air,” “Argo,” “Gone Girl”) remains focused on finding his missing young daughter even after four years, as her body was never found. After a string of bank robberies, he gets a tip of when the next one is going to take place.
The trail leads to a criminal mastermind, duplicitous Dellrayne (William Fitchner, "Elysium"), who possesses such powerful hypnotic ability that he can alter the reality in people's minds to do his bidding simply by uttering certain words. They would act contrary to the true reality of the situation because they see their behavior as normal.
These people feel inexplicably compelled to do whatever it is being asked of them to do and will not stop until it's done. Imagine strangers creating a diversion, walking into traffic, driving off with a loot, turning into each other. Even more puzzling to Danny, he comes across a clue during the robbery that looks like a link to his kidnapped daughter. The way the heist is pulled off and the jump-scare aftermath is tensely executed. There's one particular incident that is terrifyingly distressing.
Danny eventually finds out the tip came from a dime-store fortune teller, Diana Cruz (Alice Braga), who clearly is more than meets the psychic eye. Danny learns that there is a secretive government program that trains people to be able to create “hypnotic construct,” the kind of power that Dellrayne has, albeit not as not strong, as he's a natural leader. Dellrayne is relentlessly on their trail because Danny, unbeknownst to him, knows key information about a mysterious project.
From here the story gets more twisted. Just when you think Danny and Diana successfully escape from Dellrayne's grasp, it goes back to square one. Criticisms about the films seem to be centered around the constant exposition, unimpressive inversion visual effects, derivative elements from more superior sci-fi films, and repeated rug-pulling out under the audience.
While there's some validity, they do not detract from the pull-wool-over your eyes originality and trickery of a story. And the mysterious project is not merely a MacGuffin. Clandestine identities are peeled back, shredded and stripped. Earlier sequences are craftily played out again and reconstructed, with their reality reshaped, and payoff dolled out.
If you're generally intrigued with reality versus illusion premises (“Inception,” “Shutter Island,” “Don't Worry Darling”), you'll be in for one head trip of an action-packed thriller.
“Hypnotic” is a mind-twisting ride from start to finish.