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Back Shelf Beauties
by Willie Waffle

Mr. Brooks

Kevin Costner stars as Earl Brooks – a well known and respected Oregon philanthropist and businessman (he’s kind of like Donald Trump, but SUPER EVIL and more skilled with a comb).  However, in the dark of night, he is the notorious Thumbprint Killer.  One evening, when the need to kill is too strong to ignore, he finds a young couple, follows them home, and carries out his evilly brilliant strategy to kill them, take erotic photos for his own pleasure and clean up, so no trace of evidence is left behind.  Yet, he makes one mistake, and it might be the one that exposes his double life. 

Has someone seen Mr. Brooks?  Will he be captured by the detective, Tracy Atwood (Demi Moore), who has been chasing him?

Mr. Brooks eschews the CSI-style mystery and investigation you might be looking for, and delivers more of a soap opera-like story about everyone’s personal lives, whether you find that interesting or not, and whether these lurid details are important to the plot or not.

Director/co-writer Bruce Evans and Raynold Gideon provide a movie that can be scary at times, but often falls into camp and comedy, when that might not be the intention (or, at the least, takes the steam out of the creepy tone).  They do a wonderful job showing us Brooks’ methods, intelligence, his sick feelings about what he is doing, and make him squirm a bit when the tide turns against him.  However, Evans and Gideon pack the movie with plenty of filler that eventually finds its way into the story, but isn’t all that compelling or important to the main mystery.

For example, the audience gets stuck watching all of the histrionics surrounding Atwood’s personal life and divorce.  Then, we get some story about Brooks and his daughter, Jane (Danielle Panabaker), which could have been a good movie on its own, but is minimally played out here for a couple of cheap thrills.  Finally, we have a storyline about Brooks’ yang to his ying (consider this character to be temptation or the devil on his shoulder), which can be interesting half of the time, intentionally funny a quarter of the time, and of the wrong tone the other quarter.  It’s plenty of stuff, but not all of it is relevant.

Sadly, Mr. Brooks is taken down a few steps by Dane Cook, who plays a man who gets involved with Brooks in a way I don’t want to give away here.  For most of the movie, you have to wonder if Cook was brought in for badly conceived comic relief, or is he so out of his element you start to laugh at him?  Cook seems to be the same mode he is in for his stand up comedy routine – an over-energized rocker growling his lines.  While he’s not supposed to be the most accomplished or brightest of characters in the movie, he should make the character less of a buffoon, and a bit more realistic.  He’s a good comedian, but as an actor, he’s a good comedian.    

Meanwhile, Costner does everything he can to carry Mr. Brooks.  I have always liked Costner, and consider him to be one of the most underrated actors out there (the kind of guy who gets mocked when he might not always deserve it).  He never goes for the melodramatic (Cook should have paid a bit more attention to learn how that’s done) and makes Mr. Brooks a suave tortured soul who almost becomes the movie’s anti-hero.  Most of all, he brings the character to life in a way the writers clearly want – he is a guy you have to admire for his intellect, but deplore him for how he uses it. 

Mr. Brooks needs some help, but you’ll see worse.     

1 ½ Waffles (Out of 4)

Mr. Brooks is rated R for strong bloody violence, some graphic sexual content, nudity and language. 

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