Mr. Brooks Review

With a cast comprising chiefly of Kevin Costner, Demi Moore and William Hurt, "Mr Brooks" seems like a throwback to the trashy thrillers of the early 1990s, but it's surprisingly enjoyable, thanks to a superb script, impressive direction and dynamite performances from its three leads. Costner plays respected businessman Earl Brooks, who's harbouring a terrible secret: in addition to being a loving husband and father, he's actually an accomplished serial killer known as The Thumbprint Killer. He even has his own evil alter ego, Marshall (William Hurt), who pops up from time to time, urging Earl to feed his murderous habit. After a dormant period of almost two years, Earl is back to his old murdering ways, but this time something goes wrong - an amateur photographer, Smith (Dane Cook), catches Earl in the act and blackmails him with a macabre request, that Earl teach him the tricks of the serial killing trade. Earl has no choice but to comply with Smith's request, whilst also staying one step ahead of tenacious detective Tracy Atwood (Demi Moore) and dealing with some other problems closer to home.

There are definite hints of TV's "Dexter" in "Mr Brooks", in that both pull off that trickiest of characters, a sympathetic serial killer. This is largely down to the combination of an extremely well written script and a terrific central performance from Kevin Costner. There's also strong support from William Hurt (chillingly effective as Marshall) and Demi Moore, while the script even makes a virtue of Dane Cook's inherent annoyingness.

Director and co-writer Bruce A Evans orchestrates a number of superb suspense sequences and the twisty script is full of surprises and unexpected reversals. It's a trashy tale, to be sure, but it's also brilliantly executed and a huge amount of fun to boot. Recommended.