Mr. Brooks: Don't Go There

"Mr. Brooks" is a new feature film starring Kevin Costner, Demi Moore and William Hurt. I'd read some very bad reviews of this film and some mediocre reviews of this film before I went and saw it. I went, despite the bad reviews, because I've been a fan of the writers' earlier works. It certainly wasn't the worst film I've ever seen ("Manos: The Hands of Fate" still holds that honor), but I'd put it somewhere between the mediocre and bad ranges.

Kevin Costner plays Earl Brooks, an entrepreneur/owner of a box company in Portland, Oregon. He's a family man and a good citizen who seemingly has it all: A thriving business, a loving wife (Marg Helgenberger), a daughter (Danielle Panabaker) in college, and a spacious home. But Mr. Brooks also has an addiction, a dark and unnatural addiction. While by day he is seemingly the perfect man, by night he is the Thumbprint Killer, a ruthless serial killer who commits thrill killings that seem to be perfect crimes. The script fails to tell, however, of any reason for his compulsive, destructive behavior.

Although Mr. Brooks has kept his urge to kill under control for over two years with the aid of regular Alcoholics Anonymous meetings (in his introductions, he states, "I'm an addict"), on the night he is named the local Chamber of Commerce's Man of the Year, his demons, manifested as a gleefully sadistic alter ego named Marshall (William Hurt), take hold. After the awards dinner, he takes his wife home and, under cover of working on his pottery hobby in the small shack that houses his kiln, heads out to commit a brutal double murder.

This time, however, Mr. Brooks makes a critical mistake, and is photographed by Mr. Smith (Dane Cook), the victims' peeping Tom neighbor. Recognized as a local celebrity by the disturbed Mr. Smith, Mr. Brooks finds himself blackmailed into committing another murder, with Mr. Smith as a tagalong. That's right. Mr. Smith has no interest in turning Mr. Brooks over to the police. He just wants to accompany him on the commission his next homicide. The serial killer has his own stalker. Mr. Brooks also faces trouble on the home front, as his daughter arrives home unexpectedly from college, and evidence soon surfaces that she may have a murder investigation of her own to face.

A quirky yet efficient millionaire heiress detective (Demi Moore) is assigned to the Thumbprint Killer case and zeroes in on Mr. Smith as a potential witness. The detective is trying to put her second divorce behind her, but she's not presenting the kindof settlement offer desired by her husband. Aside from the Thumbprint Killer, she's also looking for a revenge-bound convict she helped put in jail that just escaped from prison.

While the acting performances in this film were fine, the story was lacking. I'd expected a lot more from Bruce A. Evans and Raynold Gideon. They wrote "Stand By Me" and "Starman." At first I suspected the final draft of the script may have been completely rewritten by the director, losing some of the writers' intent in the process. Then I saw that Bruce A. Evans directed the picture. This story is detailed, but it never digs beneath the surface in search of motives or insight. I found only one memorable line in the film, uttered by Mr. Brooks: "If I were here to kill you, you'd already by dead." There were some interesting plot twists in the third act, setting itself up for at least a guess-it-wasn't-so-bad ending. However, my hopes were quickly quashed by an ending with which I was unable to temporarily suspend disbelief. The script also left open the possibility of a sequel that I hope will never be made. If you simply must see this film, wait for it to come out on DVD.