Mr. Brooks is the rare example of a movie that’s getting graded almost entirely on its concept. The film is just so different from anything else out there, and such strange and difficult material for the actors in it that you kind of have to admire that they made it at all. Will any of this matter towards the overall success of the movie? No. People won’t see this, it will be soon forgotten, and the only time anyone will bring it up is when I’m whining about how dumb the general public is.
The concept, for which I’m doling out this A-, is Costner as a serial killer. You can pick that much up from any of the numerous ads running on television. What you can’t pick up is how damn likeable Costner is in this role, it’s stunning, he plays a monster that you definitely end up pulling for throughout.
A few other people make appearances, Dane Cook and Demi Moore to name two of them. Neither are “must see” though Cook is a smidge better than Moore, but neither of them are negatives here either. They’re both decent, which is pretty good considering neither of them have had a hit in the past five years (Dane because he’s too new and has picked bad roles, Demi because she’s too old and has picked bad roles). Conversely, someone that is wretched here is Marg Helgenberger. She’s in about seven minutes of the film total; but all seven minutes are the worse for her presence. I can only hope that on the DVD we get a “Non-Marg” version. There is also one “action scene” that’s ridiculous.
Plenty about Mr. Brooks works though. It’s a very clean movie, suspenseful but also logical. So many films use jump cuts and loud music to create tension in today’s market but Mr. Brooks doesn’t rely on any tricks. It does it the old fashioned way, and it’s damn effective. William Hurt is also indispensable here, (truly, you can’t dispense of him) and he plays off of Costner to perfection. Without the two of them you’ve got no movie, and now, having seen them, they do seem like naturals for a serial killer hero style of tale. Or is he an anti-hero because we’re not supposed to cheer for him? I always get the terms confused.
I never get into endings, but Mr. Brooks very narrowly avoids disaster on that front. As it stands it all works, and you’re left wanting more of this character as you shuffle out. It’s known that this could be a potential series going forward and I hope these guys can ignore the box office disaster that awaits them and somehow get financing for a sequel. Take my advice, you should see this. It will stretch your movie range, in a good way, and get you thinking about the false morality movies so often feed us. Mr. Brooks, in its own quiet manner, stands taller than all of the giant films that have come so far this summer. Sometimes, if you’re a killer movie, you don’t need to shout.
