Mr. Brooks
Rated: R
Runtime: 2 hours
Directed by: Bruce A. Evans
Starring:
Kevin Costner - Mr. Earl Brooks
Demi Moore - Detective Tracy Atwood
Dane Cook - Mr. Smith
William Hurt - Marshall
Marg Helgenberger - Emma Brooks
Danielle Panabaker - Jane Brooks
At one point, Mr. Brooks may have been a good script. The film hints at interesting glimmers of exploring the darkest of addictions and the most twisted of genetic similarities. Unfortunately, a bunch of really crappy scripts muscled their way in and paired with inept casting and wretched director, Mr. Brooks is one of the worst films of the year.
Kevin Costner is Earl Brooks: Box Magnate (he owns a box factory because that allows him to own a private kiln; unfortunately, the film does not make a pun on this). Oh, but Mr. Brooks is addicted to killing, much like you or I might be addicted to alcohol or Pringles. He attends meeting but his evil imaginary friend (William Hurt) pushes him to keep killing. Pushed too far, the normally fastidious Mr. Brooks ends up getting caught in the act by “Mr. Smith”, a Peeping Tom (Dane Cook) who blackmails our protagonist into doing another murder because Smith wants to recapture the thrill.
Oh, there’s also a storyline about Mr. Brooks’ daughter (Danielle Panabaker) having a dark secret of her own and this is the interesting storyline the film should have followed. There’s also another storyline about a detective (Demi Moore) who is quasi-investigating the case while dealing with a divorce, an escaped convict who’s also a serial killer, and basically making me want to tear out what little hair I have left. I wish Moore’s storyline in this film could be put inside a rocket, blasted into the Sun, and then we could destroy the Sun. We would all die, but it would be worth it. That’s how freaking terrible it is.
There’s very little good in this film. To begin, the script doesn’t place any faith in the lead’s acting ability so the imaginary friend gets to have all the fun, removing an entire dimension from Brooks. While one could make the argument that it’s good to have someone Brooks can play off of, it seems like a choice made out of the fear that the actor wouldn’t be able to convey the internal conflict or that the audience would be too stupid to pick up on it.
Then there’s the casting. Most of the performances are passable, but Dane Cook needs to stick to what works for him: over the top oberservations that don’t end in a punchline and stealing from Louis C.K. The role of Mr. Smith desperately needed a capable character actor and instead they picked up someone they hoped would draw the 18 to 24-year old crowd when all the tickets to Knocked Up are sold out. Cook isn’t acting in this role. It’s simply Dane Cook, with all his mannerisms and inflections, saying lines to a schizo serial killer.
But what really made me want to eat my own face off was the Demi Moore storyline. It’s not her performance because she’s does passable work. No, it’s that she’s from a different movie. She’s from a terrible movie where the character she plays is a great detective but doesn’t have the sense to only work on one major serial killer investigation at a time. She’s a from an atrocious movie where she hates her father but seems to have no problem taking $60 million from him but still be a cop. She’s from an affront-to-humanity movie where she’s involved in a bitter divorce which keeps cutting into Mr. Brooks and then leaves again so she can have a shootout/rave. The techno-beat, strobe-light gunfight so out of place that I almost left the theatre, went to find every print of Demi Moore in World’s Most Boring and Idiotic Cop and cast them into the firey pits of Hell from whence they came.
If you think that’s unfair, I think it’s unfair that the most interesting storyline in the film gets about twenty minutes of screen time and Demi Moore’s clusterfuck of worthless noise gets over an hour. To see a really interesting story about a serial killer, catch Showtime’s Dexter when it hits DVD this August. To see a really uninteresting and painfully bad story that’s kind of about a serial killer, see Mr. Brooks.
Words by
Matt Goldberg
5.22.07