Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Married Baby Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Alan Smithee Esq. Strong candidate for one of the best serial killer movies ever made. A strong mystery throughout and features some rather interesting sub-plots to boot. Don't let Dane Cook deter you from watching. It's also an interesting take on addiction and what lengths an addict will go to and the destruction created by these behaviors.

slightlymad22 Continuing my plan to watch every Kevin Costner movie in his filmography in order, I come to 2007's Mr. Brooks. Plot In A Paragraph: Earl Brooks (KC) is a successful business man, who has just won Man Of The Year who also happens to have a murderous alter ego known as the thumbprint killer.I think Mr. Brooks is a brilliant movie, filled with fantastic performances, a great script (Kevin Costner thought the script was one of the most perfect scripts he'd ever read.) and solid directing. How this movie failed to find an audience is beyond me. It's funny movie to be rooting for a serial killer, but the way KC plays him as a tortured soul has you wanting him to succeed. Dane Cook, who I have never been a fan of, is OK as the buffoon who decides to blackmail a serial killer. As for Demi Moore, I'll admit from the off, that I am bias. I love her. I have had a crush on her since the 80's, and will usually give anything she is in a chance. she remains one of the most talented, under rated and beautiful women in movies, and her ladylike sexiness is in rare supply. For this Zoner any movie becomes promising just by having her name in it's cast.According to interviews at the time of the movie's release with KC said this was supposed to be the first movie in a trilogy. It's a real shame this never found an audience and We never got to see more of Mr Brooks and Detective Atwell.

krwrawlings32 Having missed this in my local cinema a friend, whose movie judgements I usually trust, lent me his DVD copy.Finding a spare couple of hours I put it on and settled back to revel in Kevin Costner shedding his good guy image to 'play the baddie'. Now, the central concept of our Kev playing a mega- successful business man who is secretly addicted to murder I could take. I also had no problem with William Hurt playing his alter-ego - his Mr Hyde to Costner Dr Jekyll if you will. But my credibility began to become stretched when, firstly, "Mr Smith" (Dane Cook) blackmails Mr Brooks into letting him come on a murder spree with him. Then, as if that was unbelievable, we suddenly have ANOTHER killer thrown into the mix in the shape of "The Hangman" (and, of course, his torture loving girlfriend! Of course this guy just happens to be after the cop - female, with marital problems naturally (played by the dreadful Demi Moore!) for reasons... Well, lets just say he has his reasons!OK, so by now I am find any faith in the movie beginning to become sorely tested... Oh look, now we discovered that not only is the Costner character's daughter home from college because she is pregnant, but she has also apparently killed a fellow student... WHAT!!!On top of everything else we also have THE worst continuity ever! At some point - far too convoluted to detail here! - Ms Moore sustains a very bad cut to her head, which we see being stitched up i graphic detail, yet when we next see her - and for the rest of the film - there is not a single sign of the injury, not even a plaster!!Somewhere in amongst all this convoluted, often poorly scripted and poorly acted mess is a decent film trying to escape! I'm not saying it doesn't have its moments - hence the 4 stars - but overall it really is a big, BIG mess!

NateWatchesCoolMovies There are a few films Kevin Costner has done in which he has really been allowed and been willing to test the boundaries of what is usually expected from him in a role. 3,000 Miles To Graceland and Eastwood's A Perfect World are fine examples. Perhaps the finest though is Mr. Brooks, a dark tale that showcases the actor in a terrifying turn and the last type of role you would picture for him on paper. Opposites are paramount in acting and cinema as a whole, and it's that type of contrarian casting choice that can lead to a performer's finest hours. In this case it's certainly one of Kevin's best outings, and casts him in a frightening new light, or should I say dark. Here he is Earl Brooks, husband, father, businessman and all round stand up guy. Except for the fact that he moonlights as a methodical and psychopathic serial killer. He sees it as an affliction, and is almost ashamed of it, whether by a tiny flicker of a soul he may have, or simply by the standards impressed onto society. He's efficient, cold and hopelessly addicted to the act of murder. His alter ego, or 'dark passenger' as the scholars say, is a cynical persona called Marshall, brought to life by a scary William Hurt. "Why do you fight it, Earl?" he drawls in that committed, laconic snarl that only Hurt can do. There's shades of his character from Cronenberg's A History Of Violence here, affirming my belief that Hurt is a pure acting prodigy and masterful of both the light and the dark within his craft. Earl has a daughter too (Danielle Panabaker) who he has worrisome thoughts about, and a picture perfect wife (Marg Helgenberger). One can't keep the turbulent nightlife of the serial killer a secret for one's entire life though, and pretty soon people start to catch on. A nosy Nelly (Dane Cook) catches a whiff of Earl's crimes and lives to wish he hadn't, and a keen Detective (Demi Moore) begins to piece the puzzle together as well. Earl is as clever as he is murderous though, covering his work and tying off loose ends with gut churning gusto. Costner carries the film terrifically, a man who is at once both uncomfortable in his own skin yet fits it like a glove when the camera dutifully bears witness to his killings. He's like a tiger who really can't change his stripes but wants to shield them from the judgment of others, and of course his own persecution. The scenes of murder are skin crawling in their frank, fly-on-the-wall nature, no slasher cinematics or gimmicky set ups here, just the icy horror of a predator extinguishing human life to sate the beast, and the nightmarish inevitability of death. Those scenes paint Earl in a horrific light, but the film doesn't try to convince us he's a monster using any usual methods, it just presents to us this man, his acts and his life surrounding them, without discernible condoning or condemning. It's cold, it's clinical and it's one of the best serial killer flicks out there.