Mr Brooks Goes Boom

Mr. Brooks could be called a twisted, modern, lesser version of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde.  I call it a disappointment.

Kevin Costner plays Mr. Earl Brooks, a much adored father, husband, business man and philanthropist who is hiding a terrible secret; he the notorious Thumbprint serial killer.  Brooks managed to keep his identity secret until the voice in his head, Marshall (William Hurt,) talks him into another killing.  Soon Mr. Smith (Dane Cook) and Detective Tracy Atwood (Demi Moore) are hot on his tail.  Always one step ahead, trying to evade capture, Mr. Brooks does his best to not slip up.

Mr. Brooks won't be winning any awards for best movie but it does have some pleasurable aspects.  Much of the movie is a conversation between Earl Brooks and his split identity Marshall.  He has conversations with him when other people are around; they talk to the audience but the other characters can't hear.  Often the discussions they have are so ridiculous and quirky you can't help but laugh out loud.  There is one scene where they say something like "He wants to kill us," and then both break out into almost synchronous laughter.  Every single time there is this synchronous laughter, I felt a chill go halfway up my spine as I too laughed with the characters.

Kevin Costner and William Hurt have great chemistry.  It isn't just the comical scenes that often work, but also the serious ones.  They have conversations as if they are old friends with no secrets.  Marshall will occasionally have an adult version of a temper tantrum.  He never goes too far as to turn off the audience, but he goes far enough to make it a little disturbing that the character is having a fight with himself.  Kevin Costner never takes Brooks out of his nearly stoic demeanor.  Their conversations were my favorite part of the movie.

Demi Moore's performance is a quality teeter-totter.  Sometimes she is ultra-fun-bad-ass but other times she is blathering boob.  Her character is going through a divorce and her "emotional" scenes feel as forced as a raw potato through a colander.  She also does that masculine walk that is supposed to tell us she is tough.  I would love to see a woman who still walks like a woman and doesn't have to become a man to be a force to be reckoned with.

Bruce Evans makes some cinematic mistakes.  There is a strange use of music and change of style in a few scenes.  There is a gun fight and he uses music and style that seems like it is attempting to make it a gunfight – Hackers style.  Evan's attempts at edgy coolness are misplaced in a movie that up until that plot point, not style driven.  It is more than a little jarring and moderately confusing.

Except for the scenes where the Evans gets caddywhumpus, the movie is pretty straight-forward looking.  The plot moves laterally to the twist ending.  Done just a little better, it may have been a fantastic twist but instead it is about as twisty as elbow macaroni.  I figured out what the twist was going to be about 20 minutes before it happened.

There is relationship between Brooks and Atwood that is severely undeveloped, to the detriment of the story.  I think the writers were attempting a Silence of the Lambs-esque affection for the detective. 

Mr. Brooks is a fantastic example of a movie that does not trust the audience.  Writers Bruce Evans and Raynold Gideon took what might have been a B rated movie and made it a D movie by thinking we are too stupid to get it.  The writers walked up to the top of the Empire State Building, opened a window, stuck their head out to see how high it is, and chucked the ending out the window.  At maximum velocity, the script, and consequently the movie, is eviscerated on the cinematic cement.

Mr. Brooks is especially frustrating because it was ok, until the ending went kablooey.