Mr. Brooks

Plot Outline:
After Mr Brooks (Kevin Costner) receives a "Man of the Year" award, we find out he is a serial killer haunted by the voice of his alter ego inside his head. Divided between a cold and racional Brooks and an emotional and intuitive Marshall (William Hurt), he decides to satisfy Marshall by killing his last victims and then "retiring" to a simple family life.

Something goes wrong in this final deed and he cannot leave his life of crime. Meanwhile, other things start to go wrong with his perfect family life too, and adding to this some more a rough cop (Demi Moore) familiar with his killing pattern also begins to chase him.

Mr. Brooks soon finds out that the only way to put an end to his life of crime is to kill again, and then some more, or die/disappear in the process.

Overall Impressions:
Unlike most of the people I know, I don't hate Kevin Costner as an actor, that might be because I haven't seen the films that people thought were a letdown. Haven't seen The Postman or Waterworld. I remember him as the guy from Field of Dreams, Robin Hood, The Bodyguard and that kick-ass film The Untouchables, but even so does a couple of bad films make a bad actor?. Okay, on that note I do realise I've said bugger-all about Mr. Brooks yet so I'll get to it.

From the very opening it had me gripped, as he and his partner (alter-ego) move onto their 'last' murder, it was interesting to see the words exchanged. The guy was a perfectionist, but when all was said and done, he even noted the loose end he had left. Anything else that we may have missed out from that scene was explained by the police at the crime scene the following day.

As I said earlier I think Costner is a good actor, but even I didn't think he had it in him to pull this one off, but he has, perfectly at that. The poster reminded me a bit of One Hour Photo, which though cool I was a little disappointed by. This one ticked all the right boxes by my book. An addicted killer trapped by a loose end and his addiction leading to ... ah well yea' that's the crunch, how can this end? Surely the options are whether he gets away with it, or not? As I played these out in my head I came to realise, neither would have been satisfying for me. Since films like The Usual Suspect, A cool bad guy that 'wins' is just as much a cliche' these days as good winning over evil, yet somehow they managed to satisfy me with what they did do. The end result: Finally a film that shows some freshness in the films about serial killers. Bravo.

I just caught it on it's way out of my local cinema, unlike Invasion this time I'm glad I did. Definitely worth a watch. On my DVD shopping list for sure.