Mr. Brooks

Rating: 6/10

Mr. Brooks is a film I've wanted to see for quite some time but never made it to the theatre and usually forgot about while I was looking for things to rent. I finally got around to seeing it and was only mildly disappointed.

The film centers on Earl Brooks (Kevin Costner), a box company executive that has recently been named Man of the Year for all of this philanthropy work. Not all is as it seems with Mr. Brooks though. Mr. Brooks and his alter ego, Marshall (William Hurt), are the serial killer known to police as the thumbprint killer. Mr. Brooks has come to terms with his addiction to murder and does one last killing to satisfy Marshall. Unfortunately for Mr. Brooks, there was a witness.

Mr. Smith (Dane Cook) lives in an apartment across the street from Earl's final victims and sees the events unfold through the windows and manages to snap off a few photos of the incident which he uses to blackmail Mr. Brooks into murdering one more time. As the story progresses, the police come to believe that Mr. Smith is the thumbprint killer.

In addition to worrying about being turned over to the police by Mr. Smith, Mr. Brooks is also facing some other personal issues. His daughter has dropped out of school, is pregnant, and suspected of (an unrelated) murder.

Overall I thought this was a decent film. The acting was well done, particularly by both Costner and Hurt. It was nice to see Marg Helgenberger in something other than CSI or a Steven Segal movies. My disappointment with this film came from its slow start. It took about 45 minutes for the movie to actually get interesting and I have to admit that I almost turned it off but I'm glad I didn't.

One of the things I really did enjoy about this film once it got moving was that it leaves room for a lot of speculation. Did his daughter really kill someone or is that all in his head? Did he plan out whether to frame Mr. Smith for the murders or was that just fortunate circumstance? I may have to give this another viewing at some point and give it some more thought.