rating:
(out of
4 stars)United States; 2007
Directed by Bruce A. Evans; produced by Kevin Costner, Raynold Gideon, Jim Wilson; written by Bruce A. Evans, Raynold Gideon
Starring Kevin Costner, William Hurt, Demi Moore, Dane Cook, Marg Helgenberger, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Danielle Panabaker
'Mr. Brooks' should not work, but somehow it does. It throws in at least six storylines, and indeed sometimes makes a mess of it, but the cleaning up is done pretty good. Plot holes and choices convenient for the script are compensated by a very interesting leading character and the kind of suspense a thriller needs. Twists and turns - from characters and stories - keep the audience interested all the way through.
The leading character is Mr. Earl Brooks (Kevin Costner), a respectable but schizophrenic man. His alter ego is Marshall (William Hurt), after two years of retirement forcing him to kill again. The "relationship" between Brooks ans Marshall is the heart of the film, the main storyline. During one of his killings he is photographed by Mr. Smith (comedian Dane Cook), which provides the second storyline in an unexpected way.
Since the story is about a criminal the police has to be involved - the third storyline. Demi Moore is Detective Tracy Atwood, slowly solving the case in a way quite hard to believe. She gets two stories of her own (storyline four and five). Ine the first she is in the middle of a distracting divorce, which tries (without success) to establish her character better, and in the second she has an escaped murderer, ready for revenge on the woman who caught him, after her.
You might not believe it, but most of these single stories actually work. Even more amazing, as a whole it is very entertaining. Flaws and plot holes aside, Kevin Costner and Dane Cook
By the way, storyline six deals with Earl's daughter Jane (Danielle Panabaker) who may have killed someone on campus. It seems she suffers from the same illness as her father, which could be bad news for dad since she wants to take over the family company. Fun!