Review: Mr. Brooks

We’ve had serial killers as central characters before, but never presented in such a gleefully silly way as this. Earl Brooks has a handful of little eccentric calling cards: a bloody thumbprint (not his, we presume) and a thorough vacuuming of the crime scene – As Demi Moore’s character later explains, he only kills victims who own vacuum cleaners.

It’s easy to pass off poor old Kevin Costner as a relic of the early nineties. Sure, we know he’s been in a lot of flops, some of them self-directed, but how many of those bombs have we actually seen ourselves? Not many, I’ll wager. Kevin’s been given a rough deal. So it’s a testament to the man’s work-ethic and integrity that he puts his heart and soul in this picture, delivering a performance which offers more than the loopy script deserves.

The tone of the film wobbles wildly at the beginning. Is it serious? Is it silly? It’s not helped by a pornographic sex scene in the first twenty minutes (I’m not complaining – it just seems a bit self-indulgent) and Mrs. Brooks being a hot-but-no-fun wife who always wants to discuss problems. The first murder is just plain nasty, and it’s laughable in the wrong way when Mr. Brooks then does a trance-like dance with his arms in the air. Yes, he’s one of those murderers.

But on the flip-side, as Chief Executive of Silliness there’s William Hurt as Marshall, Mr. Brooks’s imaginary ‘alter-ego’. Is it a good thing when the best character is not even real? He’s got some good one-liners and a willful attitude, and the audience liked him. Then Dane Cook arrives as a scruffy weirdo with blackmailing on his agenda. That’s when the plot starts having a bit of fun with itself. The ‘you kill him, and then I’ll kill you’ type theatrics are a bit odd, and the story starts veering off on wild tangents (Q:“How did you get the key to a graveyard?” A:“I own it”).

You’ve kind of given up objecting to the flippant approach to serial killing when suddenly a major plot twist hits about two-thirds in. At this point, believability has also been butchered. We sink into our seats, curious to see how this odd story will resolve itself. Maybe Demi Moore’s subplot will play a part? Nope, it doesn’t. (While on that subject, I’ll argue that Moore’s been put in the same has-been basket as Kevin Costner – get her out quick, she’s underrated).

But somehow the film never sinks into the ‘terrible’ category. It moves at a brisk pace and the acting is above average. I liked it, but can’t clearly work out why. Sorry.