Hypnotic explained (2023)

What is Hypnotic about?

Hypnotic has motifs that relate to grief, perception, government overreach, self-control, and wholeness through family. It plays into ideas of simulation, waking up to the simulation, and breaking free of the simulation. Mixing elements of The Matrix, visuals inspired by Inception, and Texas seen through the eyes of Robert Rodriguez, Hypnotic has all the makings of a cult film

Cast

• Danny Rourke – Ben Affleck
• Diana Cruz / Vivian – Alice Braga
• Minnie – Hala Finley
• Dellrayne – William Fichtner
• Nicks – J.D. Pardo
• River – Dayo Okeniyi
• Carl – Jeff Fahey
• Jeremiah – Jackie Earle Haley
• Written by – Robert Rodriguez | Max Borenstein
• Directed by – Robert Rodriguez

The ending of Hypnotic explained

Recap

Hypnotic’s ending begins at a shed in a valley. It’s there that Danny hid his young daughter, Minnie, from the Division. For three years, Minnie has honed her powers as a Hypnotic under the care of Danny’s foster parents. Danny arrives a few minutes before the Division. He and Minnie get to share a moment of reconnection. Then Diana, Dellrayne, and the rest of the Division soldiers arrive. An initial confrontation turns out to merely be a hypnotic construct used to trick the Division agents.

After Minnie unlocks Diana’s memories, reuniting mother, father, and daughter, the family of Hypnotics annihilates the entirety of the Division. This was the plan all along. By luring the entirety of the Division to Minnie after giving her time to come into her own, it means the Rourke family is free. Everyone who knew about Danny, Diana, and Minnie is gone. Now they can live their life on their own terms, without the Division trying to turn them into psyops tools. It’s a happy ending. 

During the credits, we get a scene. Carl tells his wife, Danny, Diana, and Minnie to leave on the helicopter and he’ll meet up with them after disposing of the bodies. The helicopter takes off and disappears. Carl then morphs into Dellrayne. We see Carl’s corpse on the ground.  

Meaning

Hypnotic is ultimately about individuals standing up to the government. Individualism trumps government control. Freedom is more important than being of service when that service comes at the cost of your family’s health, happiness, and future. When the choice is “let the Division turn Minnie into a psyops weapon” or “Minnie gets to live a normal life” any decent parent will fight for the latter. This is, of course, hyperbolic for dramatic effect. That’s not a situation people will ever find themselves in. But it becomes representative of a larger tension between citizens and their government. Of course “hypnotic constructs” aren’t a real thing. But they’re not far off from the way in which propaganda from the government (or a political party) can warp the way people see the world. 

The end of Hypnotic is a bit of an indulgence for anyone who dreams of individual rights winning out over governmental overreach. The citizens win. The government loses. In that way, it’s a very Texas-y movie made by one of Texas’s most famous directors. Yet it’s crafted carefully enough to not lean politically one way or the other, allowing people across all political spectrums to see themselves in Danny and his family and the Division as whatever monster they wish. 

The twist comes with Dellrayne surviving. We’re told several times that the heroes need to eradicate the entirety of the Division. If anyone survives, that means the Rourkes aren’t safe. Sure enough, someone does. Not even just someone. The leader. A random Division member might just say “screw it” and move on. But Dellrayne is the worst person to survive. That means the heroes aren’t safe. The Division will regroup. Then, probably, try again to get Minnie. 

Thematically, this makes sense. As nice as it is to have this fantasy of the individuals defeating the government. The government is huge. A snake with seemingly infinite heads. Even politically in America right now. If both parties suddenly put aside all of their differences and started working together, ushering in a time of political peace and immense progress, there’s always some bug in the system. Some facet of disharmony and discord that will slowly turn cancerous. That’s what Dellrayne embodies. That notion that there’s always going to be another issue. We’re never truly safe or free. 

As bleak as that is, it can be a positive thing. A reminder to not take the good times for granted. To stay vigilant but continue to live your life. To be proactive and help shape the world you want to be part of rather than being oblivious until it’s too late. That’s how Danny, Diana, and Minnie won in the first place. It’s unfortunate that we can’t just ignore the government. But we can’t. You don’t have to, nor should you, create such an elaborate counter measure. But by just voting and being aware of what’s going on, you can do a lot. 

The themes and meaning of Hypnotic

Questioning the nature of your reality

Throughout Hypnotic, nothing is ever really as it seems. The first 75% of the movie is actually a simulation designed to get Danny Rourke to reveal the location of his daughter to the Division. Everything we see, everything we’re told, is either an outright lie or a slant on the truth. This is possible because of the powers of the Hypnotics trained by the Division. They create elaborate mental constructs that change the way people see the world. 

The main journey for Danny isn’t getting his daughter back so much as deconstructing the veil placed over his perception. Who he is, what he is, who and what everyone else is. His missing daughter is more of a MacGuffin that drives Danny’s rebellion against his reality. Each layer he peels back brings him closer to her. And he only reunites with her once the illusion’s come crashing down. 

Individualism over government 

For most of Hypnotic, Danny is under the control of the United States government. Specifically, the Division. Everything he sees and gets to do is curated by them. He believes he’s in control but he’s not. Not even a little bit. That is, until Danny questions the nature of his reality and reclaims his individuality. Once he does that, the dynamic reverses. He’s the one in control, with the power, not Dellrayne and the Division. We even have the showdown where the government attempts to come onto private property, the ranch belonging to Danny’s foster parents. And the individual citizens not only square off with these representatives of the government, but defeat them. 

For anyone skeptical of big government and government overreach and the rights of the individual—Hypnotic is a nightmare that slowly turns into an empowering, heroic daydream.

Dellrayne lives 

Despite the victory of the division, a mid-credits scene reveals that Dellrayne used his hypnotic powers to appear as Carl. Carl is actually dead. That means the Division hasn’t been eradicated. Which means the representative of big government lives. Which means big government lives. Thematically, this brings us back to questioning reality and individualism. As long as the Division exists, Danny has to worry about someone hijacking his reality and individuality. That turns Hypnotic into a cautionary tale that’s essentially saying that as long as government exists, people need to stay vigilant. Even if you win. Even if you feel you have the advantage. Keep one eye open. 

Family

When the Division has control over Danny, Danny doesn’t have his family. His daughter is missing. His wife is working for the enemy. This is, in some ways, by design. As we come to realize this has all been part of the plan Danny and Diana came up with to protect Minnie from the Division. They break up their family temporarily to stop the Division or let the Division do it and separate them forever, as Minnie would be their weapon rather than Danny and Diana’s daughter. It’s right there in the name; this group will literally divide the family. 

Of course, Danny only gets the upper hand once he reunites with his daughter and they unlock Diana’s memories. The end of this family’s division marks the end of the Division. So there’s a lot of importance placed on unity/solidarity in standing up against the government. Even though individualism is important, so too is having others to fight for. 

Why is the movie called Hypnotic?

“Hypnotic” is an adjective form for “hypnosis”. If someone is under the influence of hypnosis, they’re said to be in a hypnotic state. This can extend casually to the idea of something being mesmerizing. You might describe a striking sunset or a binge-worthy TV show as hypnotic, as these things can put someone into a bit of a trance.

Hypnotic is actually Greek for “sleep” and the official classification for sleeping pills that include barbiturates, benzodiazepines, nonbenzodiazepines, and quinazolinones. 

As a title, Hypnotic primes the viewer for some kind of story relating to hypnosis, manipulation, and sleep. This is similar to the use of Insomnia for a 2002 Christopher Nolan thriller that takes place in a nightless Alaska where a detective can’t sleep. Both films lean into a dream-like quality and aesthetic in their mise-en-scene, combining form and function between the visuals and the narrative. 

The extra layer in Hypnotic is that the story redefines the word as referring to people, trained by a government division, who have developed incredibly powerful mind control abilities through hypnotic constructs and suggestions. 

At the beginning of the film, we believe the use of “hypnotic” will refer only to Ben Affleck having to battle an antagonist with hypnotic abilities. But, after the twist, we realize there’s a lot more to the title than it first seemed. Especially with how it relates to Affleck’s character. 

You could also start to make an argument about reading the title through a frame of government and its population. With Ben Affleck’s Danny Rourke representing the everyman and the idea of people waking up to the hypnotic effects we’re under and seeing things for how they are rather than how the government wants us to see it. 

Important motifs in Hypnotic

Hypnotic constructs

Danny Rourke spends most of Hypnotic unknowingly in an elaborate hypnotic construct. He isn’t actually running through Austin, TX or driving to Mexico. He was never a cop with a partner. Instead, he’s in a giant government facility. The combined power of the Division’s Hypnotics is enough to trick Danny into thinking he’s somewhere he isn’t, doing things he’s not, with people who aren’t. 

Danny’s entire character journey is about waking up to the reality of these constructs then putting an end to them entirely by defeating the Division. By having not only the larger construct that is Danny’s false reality and backstory but the smaller constructs throughout that affect people around him, Hypnotic asks people to think about the nature of their own reality. Obviously there aren’t Hypnotics mind controlling us, but the 21st century has had a huge problem, especially in recent years, with media shaping perception and creating a tribalism around political events, even turning non-political happenings into battlegrounds between ideologies. These are the constructs many of us need to awaken to and escape. 

Questions & answers about Hypnotic

Why did Minnie build the giant domino toppling design? What’s it mean?

So the house Danny walks into and that whole domino toppling aren’t real. They’re part of a construct created around what’s revealed to be a shed in a basin. Minnie didn’t actually spend what would have had to have been a day or more assembling all those dominos just for Danny to knock over. It was a hypnotic construct she sent his way. It seems like maybe it was something they used to do for fun? Maybe part of her training? 

In so far as the meaning, you could view it as a demonstration of how elaborate Minnie’s constructs are, establishing her power level as a Hypnotic. But we’re also at the end of what had been a multi-year plan to bring the Division to this exact moment. Danny and Diana set up a lot of dominos and have been, for three years, knocking them over. Now, finally, we’re at the end of it all. So the domino toppling can represent this elaborate concept and how many things had to line up for it to work. 

How many people know Dellrayne lived?

I’m asking this one. I saw Hypnotic in theaters in Austin. There were 30+ people in the theater. Smaller theater but good crowd. When the credits hit, the only ones who stayed were me and four others. That means less more than 83% of the people who just watched Hypnotic missed the actual end of the movie. They left convinced that Dellrayne was dead and the characters had a perfectly happy ending. When, in reality, Dellrayne lived and will likely rebuild the Division and go after Danny, Diana, and Minnie. It’s a setup for a sequel. But how many people will know that’s what happened? I love the idea that when Hypnotic comes out on streaming that 80% of people might turn it off right at the credits and have a completely different sense of how the movie ends than the 20% who see the scene. It’s a Mandela Effect situation in the making. 

Now it’s your turn

Have more unanswered questions about Hypnotic? Are there themes or motifs we missed? Is there more to explain about the ending? Please post your questions and thoughts in the comments section! We’ll do our best to address every one of them. If we like what you have to say, you could become part of our movie guide!