Mr. Brooks

Mr. Brooks ***1/2

Directed by Bruce A. Evans
Written by Bruce A. Evans and Raynold Gideon

Starring:
Kevin Costner as Mr. Earl Brooks
Demi Moore as Detective Tracy Atwood
Dane Cook as Mr. Smith
William Hurt as Marshall
Marg Helgenberger as Emma Brooks
Ruben Santiago-Hudson as Hawkins
Danielle Panabaker as Jane Brooks

121 Minutes(Rated R for strong bloody violence, some graphic sexual content, nudity and language.)
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"After two years the hunger has returned to Mr. Brook's brain. It never really left."

I must say, I was looking forward to "Mr. Brooks" more than the big budget sequels of "Spider-Man 3" and "Pirates of the Caribbean." First of all, dark thrillers are exactly my genre. And second of all, the pairing of Kevin Costner and William Hurt as a family man and his serial killer alter ego, respectively, seemed genius. And while there are moments in "Mr. Brooks" where you can see that Hollywood got to it and tried to make it something it is not, there are also moments that made me quiver in excitement with what would happen next, and other moments where I just smiled because I was enjoying so much what was happening in the present.

If you look at Earl Brooks he seems to have the perfect life. The runner of a ceramic company, beautiful wife and daughter, and newly elected Man of the Year, there does not seem to be anything wrong with him. But on the inside he is a truly twisted man, and is addicted to killing. It may not be all of him, as whenever he does get the taste for murder in his system he is visited by his alter ago-Marshall-who always convinces him to kill. Earl is actually the Thumbprint Killer, leaving the thumbprints of his victims somewhere for the police to see. The killer has been absent for two years, but returns after Earl vows to never kill again. He tries to stop-turning to God and going to A.A. meetings pretending he is a drunk. But after that last kill everything just falls apart. The couple he killed having sex enjoyed having the blinds open, and Earl was photographed by a mysterious Mr. Smith who sends up the pictures. Mr. Smith wants to go out with Earl on his next kill, or he will go to the police with his secret. And the police, especially Detective Tracy Atwood (played by a miscast Demi Moore, who is pretty much miscast in anything that she is in), are hard at work trying to find the Thumbprint Killer, even though she is dodging bullets such as her ex-husband trying to get all of her money, or the fact that a killer that she put in jail has recently escaped, and is looking for her. And Earl meanwhile has to deal with the return of his daughter, who seems to have dropped out of a school because she's having a baby, but she may be hiding an even darker secret under that.

The films biggest flaw is Demi Moore-the actress and her character. First of all they spend far too much time of her. I could care less about her relationship with her ex-husband, and even though she storyline did eventually tie into what was happening with Brooks, it was still tedious to get through and that could have been omitted. And as a actress she lacks in talent. Her scenes also turned this from a fascinating character study/thriller, into a standard police action film. The worst scene is a hallway shootout that is loud, bloody, and unnecessary. But the real meat of the film comes from every time Costner or Hurt are on the screen, especially when they are together. Each actor ends up being better than the other as every line passes, and it is clear that they are just really into the characters and not trying to be "one up" on each other. Some of the dialogue shared between them is darkly hilarious, namely a scene where they discuss Mr. Smith getting hit by a car before they meet him, which would end up solving all of their problems. The two of them share a laugh that is sick, but has this buddy aspect to it as well. I did like how this never really became a final showdown between Mr. Brooks and Marshall, although there was hints of that around the halfway point, when Earl wishes to end his life of killing once and for all. But then again the full story for "Mr. Brooks" was envisioned as a trilogy, and a trilogy was pitched to Costner. I would assume that this is the middle story, and I would love a prequel with Brooks and Marshall out killing people in the beginning, before he had a family and a business.

I believe that there was more to "Mr. Brooks" on paper than there was on the screen, and that Hollywood did get to it and change it around a bit. This would work better as a character study than the police thriller it sometimes became. There are also some interesting little subtle notes, one of them comes from his daughter's pregnancy and a line where Earl states that there will be no abortion. Although it is not highlighted strongly, I certainly found some kind of sick and twisted irony where Earl refuses to kill the unborn child even though his daughter may not want the baby even though he is a cold blooded murderer who kills innocent people all the time. And while Earl does blame a lot of the events that the film depicts on the last kill that he did, there is also a portion where his killing life merges with his family life, and the creepy thing is that this is what would have happened regardless of who he killed last.

One last thing to note, every time I tell people-especially those my age-that I saw 'Mr. Brooks," they always have the same question for me-"How was Dane Cook?" The comedian whose last film co-starred him with Jessica Simpson has taken a dramatic turn, and I will say that nothing stood out from Dane Cook negatively. While it was not a memorable performance, he did what he had to do, and it he did it without creating anything problems. The only acting problem here comes from Demi Moore, who could have been played better by almost anyone else. "Mr Brooks" is an extremely entertaining film. It is all at once a fascinating character study, a mostly well acted drama, and a dark demented thriller with a twisted note of comedy, standing high over the many many sequels I have been subjected to over the past few weeks. I really do hope they make two more films about the character.