Hypnotic(2023)

Plot Summary

• Danny Rourke (Ben Affleck), an Austin Police Department detective, recalls to his therapist the abduction of his seven-year-old daughter (Ionie Olivia Nieves), Minnie, which occurred three years ago and led to the dissolution of his marriage. A suspect named Lyle Terry was arrested for Minnie's kidnapping, but he pleaded not guilty due to mental incapacity and says that he has no memory of the incident or Minnie's whereabouts.Afterwards, he is picked up by his partner, Nicks (J. D. Pardo), who informs him they have received an anonymous tip that a safe deposit box will be robbed. Nicks convinces Rourke to check it out as there have been 2 more Bank robberies that week where the robber took just one safety deposit box, and no money at all. While staking out the bank, they witness a mysterious man give instructions to civilians and fellow policemen who immediately follow his commands. Rourke suspects they are all in an elaborate heist and races to the targeted safe deposit box. Rourke enters the bank vault on the pretext of opening a safety deposit box account with the Bank. Inside the box assigned to him, he only finds a picture of Minnie with the message "Find Lev Dellrayne" written on it.The guards and the civilians work in cohesion to steal a specific safety deposit box from the vault and deliver it back to the mysterious man.The mysterious man escapes, but Rourke is now convinced the heist has something to do with his daughter's disappearance. Rourke had come face to face with the mysterious man who tells Rourke that Lyle Terry was not aware of his actions, when he took away Minnie. The mysterious man walked away when he realized that Rourke already had the picture of Minnie, and he threw away the safety deposit box.A trace run by Nicks on the anonymous tip-off call leads Rourke to the address of fortune-teller Diana Cruz (Alice Braga). Cruz tells Rouke that the mysterious man from the bank is named "Lev Dellrayne" (William Fichtner) and that he and Cruz are both the escaped "Hypnotics". Further proof emerges when Dellrayne sends a random biker to attack Cruz and Rourke, and the biker kills himself after failing in his mission. Cruz reveals that powerful hypnotists (people with the ability to influence the brain over a psychic bandwidth. Telepaths only read the mind; Hypnotics can reshape its reality) were trained by a secretive government "Division" to control people's minds. She also tells Rourke that he is mysteriously immune to her own mind control abilities, which she demonstrates by getting Nicks to doing what she wants. Cruz says that Rourke has a psychic block which could be a result of emotional trauma or even pain of losing his daughter. Only Dellrayne can unlock his block. Dellrayne was a legend in the Hypnotics community and went rogue. He believes only he could achieve the full potential of the Hypnotics. He wanted to take over the Division. Cruz stood in his way.Dellrayne hypnotizes Nicks into attacking Rourke and Cruz, forcing Cruz to kill him in self-defense. Now seen as the two primary suspects in Nicks' murder, Rourke and Cruz flee to Mexico. Rourke is convinced that Dellrayne is behind Minnie's kidnapping. In Mexico, they learn from a former Division contact of Cruz's named Jeremiah (Jackie Earle Haley) that Dellrayne is searching for "Domino", a weapon developed by the Division which was stolen and hidden by Dellrayne when he escaped. Domino was a tool that could control even the most powerful Hypnotic, specifically Dellrayne.Dellrayne then wiped his own memory and left behind "triggers" that will prompt him to gradually recall Domino's location and simultaneously increase his regained hypnotic power. Dellrayne uses his ability to control civilians to pursue Rourke and Cruz from Jeremiah's apartment and into the surrounding city. However, Rourke taps into his own (previously unknown) hypnotic power to stop Dellrayne's control of the civilians, allowing him and Cruz to escape.Rourke and Cruz next seek out River (Dayo Okeniyi), a reclusive Division hacker. He hacks into the Division database and learns that Rourke's former wife, Vivian (Kelly Frye), was a member of the Division. Cruz and River theorize that Rourke must be another Hypnotic whose memory was wiped. Later that night, Rourke investigates River's database on his own, learning that Minnie is actually the "Domino." She is the daughter of two powerful hypnotics: Rourke and Vivian. Furthermore, "Cruz" is actually Vivian; Rourke's memory of his wife's face had been altered so that he believed "Cruz" to be a stranger. Rourke then realizes that all the events and locations seen up to this point have been hypnotic constructs created within a facility populated by Division agents that have simply acted out the roles of all the people he's met up to this point. Rourke was protecting Minnie from Vivian and the Division. Vivian wanted Minnie to be trained as a Hypnotic.Vivian and "Dellrayne" (The real head of the Division) explain that Minnie was born and raised within the Division, but Rourke escaped with her to stop her from becoming their weapon. Rourke hid Minnie and then wiped his memory, so the Division has been repeatedly putting him through a constructed scenario to make him remember. The scenario of a desperate cop looking for his daughter. They had received Minnie's photograph with the message, in the mail 6 weeks ago, and since then they had been playing the scenario over and over again (This was the 12th time they attempted), trying to get him to remember Minnie's location. Vivian tries to convince Rourke that she loves Rourke and only wants good for Minnie, but Rourke sees right through her.Rourke's mind is then "reset," bringing him back to the therapy session at the start of the film, but his powers allow him to soon awaken from the construct and escape. He had written something on the notepad, which Nicks finds out. He flees just as the Division realizes that "Find Lev Dellrayne" refers not to a person but "Deer Valley Lane" - a dead-end road with a single ranch on it.Rourke arrives at the ranch and is reunited with Minnie (Hala Finley) as well as his own foster parents, who have been raising her for the past three years while she gained control of her powers. Division agents invade the ranch, but Minnie uses her power to confuse and disorient them. Minnie restores Vivian's memories, causing Vivan to realize she aided Rourke and Minnie's escape and subsequently wiped her memory so that when Minnie was finally powerful enough to defeat the entire Division at once, Vivian could unwittingly lead them to her. Rourke and Vivian knew that they could never outrun the Division and the only way to be free is to destroy them completely.Minnie is revealed to be the one who secretly provided the "Find Lev Dellrayne" photo to the Division, setting the search in motion. Minnie then forces all the Division agents to kill each other. Minnie, her parents, and Rourke's foster parents celebrate their newfound freedom.

Storyline

• Determined to find his missing daughter, Detective Danny Rourke finds himself spiraling down a rabbit hole while investigating a series of reality-bending crimes. Aided by Diana Cruz, a gifted psychic, Rourke simultaneously pursues and is pursued by a lethal specter, the one man he believes holds the key to finding the girl. — Official synopsis