< Home / Interview / Critic / Bio / My articles on Japanese >

Mr.Brooks

Written by Nobuhiro Hosoki

 

Life seems glorious for a successful Portland businessman named Earl Brooks (Kevin Costner).  The dark-haired dude has just been honored as a "Man of the Year" and he acts the part by dressing up in sleek suits and showing off his beautiful wife, Emma (Marg Helgenberger). But there's another side to him. Unbeknownst to everyone, he is the serial killer who's grabbing headlines on the front pages of the papers.

It's Earl's alter-ego (William Hurt), only seen by Brooks, who pops up in the back seat of his car or in his office to provoke him into doing the dirty deeds. The film propels Costner back to the "Perfect World" of an unheroic man who often gets sympathy thanks to the way that audiences identify with this rather affable character.

After a couple of years of leading a normal life, complete with the serenity prayer repeated at AA meetings, Brooks is pushed by his alter-ego into a far less serene direction. One night, a buttoned-down serial killer goes out for some extracurricular activity by killing a pair of  dancers in their uncurtained bedroom. Earl makes an uncharacteristic mistake, though, and the incident attracts a hard-as-nails detective in the person of Tracy Atwood(Demi Moore), who initially ties the case to the notorious "Thumbprint Killer," a nickname of Brooks from a few years back.  Suspecting that her quarry may have slipped up impels her to trail him again.

Tracy Atwood is not the only one who becomes a nuisance to him. There's Tom (Dane Cook), a Peeping Tom from the building across the way who takes advantage of the dead dancers' exhibitionism to photograph his killing spree.  Instead of blackmailing him or handing him over to the cops, he wants  to go along with Earl on his next "outing."

From then on, director Bruce A. Evans suffocates things with tangential plot elements, as by adding an escaped convict who's also chasing Tracy out of revenge for having him arrested. And Earl's daughter comes home from college keeping some dark secrets of her own, having perhaps inherited her father's killer gene. The story starts to sidetrack, but fortunately, both Costner and Hurt give outstanding performances as two sides of one personality.  Also notable is Cook's skillful interpretation of a disturbed young man. The only tension that is missing is Demi Moore's, who doesn't quite play on the same level as Kevin. If they were more evenly matched, their conflict might have really quenched our thirst for blood.

 

Written and directed by Bruce A. Evans
Produced by Jim Wilson, Kevin Costner, Raynold Gideon
Director of photography: John Lendley
Production of design: Jeffrey Beecroft
Music by Ramin Djawadi
costume designer: Judianna Makovsky
Editor: Miklos Wright

Cast: Kevin Costner(Earl Brooks)
Demi Moore(Detective Tracy Atwood)
Dane Cook(Mr.Smith)
William Hurt(Marshall)
Marg Helgenberg(Emma Brooks)
danielle Panabaker(Jane)