Mr. Brooks

What an interesting movie. This is a perfect example of what can happen to a good movie when too many people get involved. The premise is Mr. Brooks (Kevin Costner) is "Man of the Year" but has the unfortunate affliction of wanting to kill people. This affliction comes into play whenever William Hurt is around. William plays Marshall, Mr. Brook's killing side. A sort of Mr. Hyde to Dr. Brook's Dr. Jekyll. Very interesting stuff. Marshall is with Mr. Brooks where ever he goes and is constantly trying to convince him to kill innocent people and the two of them have conversation that only Mr. Brooks can hear (obviously). Mr. Brooks has a moment of weakness after he goes two years without killing anyone and gets witnessed killing a couple by a photographer played by Dane Cook. Dane Cook (Mr. Smith in the movie) doesn't want to turn Mr. Brooks into the authorities however, he just wants to come with Mr. Brooks on his next kill and Mr. Brooks has to do it or else Mr. Smith will show his photographs to the police. I know it sounds crazy, but the movie is wonderful at this point. However, I'm guessing the studio wanted to make this movie more appealing to a wider market so they throw in another serial killer that has just escaped from prison and is now being persued by the same detective (Demi Moore) trying to catch Mr. Brooks. As you can guess, this basically ruins the whole film. What would have been a study of a man trying to overcome is urge to kill but forced to by circumstances now has a ridiculous sub plot that was thrown in for extra thrills. The movie feels like it is trying to be two different films at once. A taunt psychological study and a cheap teen slasher film. If I had the equipment (and the will to do it) I would re-edit this movie and cut out everything involving Demi Moore, her messy divorce and the escaped serial killer. If that stuff was cut out of the movie I would probably have put this one in my top tens of the year. Seriously. This movie goes from surprising good (especially with William Hurt playing the psychopathic Marshall constantly whispering into Mr. Brook's ear) to amazingly bad (every single thing that involves Demi Moore in this movie). All in all, it ends up being a good movie only because there is more with Kevin Costner and William Hurt in it than with Demi Moore and her divorce lawyers. If only the studio wouldn't have hired an extra writer to help make this film appeal to the people who are fans of crappy slasher films this movie would have been the intelligent thriller that this summer would have needed between all the blockbusters.