Sunday, July 8, 2007

Mr. Brooks

Mr. Brooks falls into that vast abyss of movies that were decent enough and worth the price of admission but after 24 hours it disappears from memory. You can see the problem I am facing since I saw this movie nearly a month ago and this is probably the first time that I have thought about it since then. If my memory is to be trusted (I do have a good track record), this was a pleasant surprise with the majority of the credit going to William Hurt and Kevin Costner.

The biggest highlights of Mr. Brooks occurred during the moments when William Hurt was onscreen. Seeing as he gets to play the manifestation of Costner’s murderous tendencies, Hurt gets to act completely over-the-top, laugh maniacally, and just have an all around good time bouncing dialogue off Costner. Ever since A History of Violence (I would go back to The Village but then I may have to cause myself and anyone who reads this irreparable harm) William Hurt has been performing at an all-star level. Mr. Brooks is just like the icing on the cake. I definitely cannot say the same thing about Kevin Costner. Mr. Brooks is either the first movie I have seen of his since Open Range or the first one that I have praised. And if you attempt to go past Open Range get ready for a long journey until maybe Tin Cup, man I am just not a big Costner fan. But that is the past and he was damn good here. Maybe it was the bowtie, maybe it was the aforementioned chemistry with William Hurt, or maybe it was killing Dane Cook in cold blood, but this was a great performance. The rest of the cast never really hurt the film although no one really does anything noteworthy, outside of Dane Cook not embarrassing himself. Demi Moore was there but the best that I can say about her plot was that it brought Michelle Dessler to the big screen. I missed you Reiko Aylesworth; you absence is noticeable on 24. Outside of the actors and actresses there is not much else worth mentioning. The brutality of the violence was a nice change of pace from the PG-13 movie world that is so prevalent nowadays. This was topped off with the completely ridiculous, yet still awesome, final dream sequence with scissors in neck and blood spurting everywhere. Good times.

I have danced around this so far, but the storyline in Mr. Brooks was bordering on absurd throughout. It walked that fine line with enough skill to not ruin the film but there were parts that really tried my patience. You had two different serial killers, an apprentice serial killer, a novice serial killer, and the alter ego of a serial killer. Really now? Damn near the entire cast were touched with the thrill kill bug. Another annoyance was the Demi Moore supercop plotline. It didn’t add anything to the main story, in fact in felt like someone decided that there needed to be more action by any means necessary. So all of a sudden Demi is being thrown from moving cars and having apartment hallway shootouts like a John Woo knockoff. And the worst thing about Mr. Brooks was that they teased Michelle Dessler nudity but didn’t deliver. That was just messed up and evil.


Although there may have been some glaring faults to the film, Mr. Brooks was a worthwhile trip to the theater. I will see at least 20 to 30 movies better than it this year but at the same time I will probably see about 20 to 30 movies worse than it. It is a middle of the pact movie but sometimes that is good enough.

6 out of 10

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