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Hola amigos, buenas vibras para todos.
**Hello friends, good vibes to all.
A couple of days ago I had the opportunity to see "Air", the film directed and co-starred by Ben Affleck in which very sincerely the work as an actor does well but as a director does better. In view of that and looking for what to see I came across this recent film where the main protagonist is our friend Ben to which I said to myself: "will it be that Affleck is on a good streak and this film is just as good as the one I saw a few days ago?" - to know the answer I had no choice but to sit down and watch it. The story has a premise that in itself lowers my hype a bit but that's because I'm very cynical about those things, I'm talking about the ability that some people claim to have to control the mind.
It is known that there are hypnosis therapies that help to face diverse problems but it is also true that in television programs I have seen psychics that with only giving an order to a person this one can act and do whatever. Look that I am a little open minded but I don't know if I can assimilate if that is possible. The thing is that this film is more or less about that, about how powerful the mind can be to have absolute control not only of a person but of an entire society. The plot is confusing, you get to understand it but you have to swim in a sea where every wave is a plot twist, that is, what you thought it was five minutes ago is no longer so and so you go. But well, let's try to talk a little bit about this new science fiction title.
This pure science fiction plot has as its main head Daniel Rourke (Ben Affleck), a police detective who is tormented by the disappearance of his daughter. The whole abduction of the girl in question is a mystery as one moment she was in the park but instantly she wasn't, she had disappeared without a trace. But as life has to go on, he continues with his detective work and begins an investigation into a series of robberies of certain banks without knowing that one of them would strangely lead him to be half a step closer to his goal. The detail is that these robberies are strange, there is something that does not quite fit and is that they occur under rather strange circumstances.
From that moment begins a chase that focuses on an enigmatic character, Dellrayne (William Fichtner) who has all the numbers to know the answers that Rourke is looking for. And for all this will come into his life Diana Cruz (Alice Braga) a psychic who will tell him that it is very possible that everything around him, everything he sees and feels is an illusion or a mere figment of his imagination. You will then have to be careful to doubt everything you come across because you don't know what is real or not. The truth and if you ask me an honest opinion I would say that it is a concept that mixes Matrix with Doctor Strange but with a much lower budget, for obvious reasons. It's not that they look alike, in fact they don't resemble anything but they may have touches that remind us of those films.
As I was saying, this story is a bit confusing, at the beginning it was hard for me to grasp the thread because the film invites you to make the intrigue part of the experience, which in that sense it does well. But when you are halfway through the rhythm of understanding things and that the pieces begin to fit out of nowhere, the plot twists appear to collapse everything and start all over again; it had been a long time since I had seen so much of this resource in a film. While it is true that many times I have said that these twists are necessary to give a certain spark to the story, abusing them can be tiring to the point that it predisposes you to be always alert and not to believe much in what you are seeing because out of nowhere everything can fall again.
Within the plot these people who manage to control the minds of others are called "hypnotics", they are a kind of individuals that just by talking they manage to obtain the absolute will of the other person. When I saw that the film was going down these lines, I confess that my interest dropped considerably due to my cynicism. Logically this is only my problem and maybe the movie is very top notch but honestly it didn't grab me as I would have liked it to. This does not mean that it is a boring film because it is not, you can watch it without problems, in fact there are parts where you can get a little tense thanks to the same dynamic of the film: go step by step looking to discover the truth almost blindly.
The script is a little weak, there are scenes where I feel that they could have been taken more advantage of, they look cheap, the passages where we see these "alterations" of reality are a little more acceptable but even so I also perceive that they fall a little short. Something that we see again that at least to me is quite tiring is that part of this plot takes place in Mexico so suddenly everything becomes sepia, we see everything under the eternal and super cliché filter that for Hollywood the streets of Mexico and Latin America in general are seen in a yellowish tone. I think it may also influence the fact that the director is Robert Rodriguez and if you see all his work you will realize that more or less always keeps the same tone.
Ben Affleck here is a grumpy guy, with good reason, since the only thing he wants is to find his daughter. Something that makes sense because it is difficult to see Ben smiling in a film, there must be, but they are few. His performance is simple, he doesn't stand out and doesn't give anything to talk about, he's just another character in the pile. The same goes for the other two characters, they do the minimum to give credibility to the plot but up to there; there is nothing relevant or praiseworthy. And I repeat, it is a very average movie, I thought it would be like that but in the end the plot of the story got me off the train.
I give this film a 6/10 because even though I finished it and it is one that is watchable it was one that didn't convince me much. Mind control, reality alterations and the US government are things we have seen in the past but I think not to the level of what is seen in this film. It lasts about an hour and a half, a plus. Do I recommend it? - Well, if you want to be surprised and let your imagination take off for a while, yes, I think it's fine to pass the time. I leave the trailer below.
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Bueno mi gente por hoy es todo, espero que les haya gustado. ¡Un abrazo a todos, nos vemos en la próxima!
***Well my people that's all for today, I hope you liked it. ¡A hug to everyone, see you next time!