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Trailer for "Mr. Brooks"

“Scary, was it?” a theater employee asked me as I left the screening of this new film starring Kevin Costner as a respectable Portland citizen and family man who is also a notorious serial killer. It’s not, but for the most part it wasn’t trying to be terribly scary. If there’s nothing else to be said for Mr. Brooks, it is at least a film made for adults about adults exploring adult concerns. As we connect with Earl Brooks, he has given in to what he refers to as his “addiction to killing” for the first time in some years. The demon in his head that drives him is manifested in the person of William Hurt, who assures him that he deserves a “reward” and reminds him of how much he enjoys the thrill of killing random strangers and getting away with it. But this time they don’t quite get away with it: They have been photographed by a voyeur (comedian Dane Cook in a more or less straight role). “Mr. Smith” doesn’t want to blackmail him, though, he wants lessons in the art of murder. At the same time, Brooks is being stalked by Detective Atwood (a miscast Demi Moore), a cop driven to obsession over the case as a release for frustration over a difficult divorce. And then there’s Brooks’ daughter, who has just dropped out of college because…well, you get the idea. Watching Mr. Brooks, I guessed that it was based on a novel, one of those crime thrillers with a preposterously bleak view of human nature in which serial killers populate the planet like tribbles. It isn’t. It’s an original screenplay by Bruce Evans and Raynold Gideon, better known for family fare like Stand By Me (which Evans also directed). It’s filmed with a nice neo-noir sheen and an unsettling sound design that should appeal to viewers who liked Fracture. The odd chemistry between Costner and Hurt is also fun to watch, though I would have hoped that Hurt, who in middle age has become an avid over-actor, had been given some juicier dialogue. But Mr. Brooks is so overstuffed that it keeps disappointing us by following new threads instead of playing out the earlier ones. It’s a diverting enough two hours that fades from memory soon after.