“Why do you fight it so hard, Earl?”
Mr. Earl Brooks has an addiction. This is not your run of the mill, “I have a drinking problem” addiction though. His addiction is to killing. He loves murdering people at random in clean, artistic fashions and so does Marshall, his intelligently diabolical alter ego. After his urges were suppressed for two years, the love for cold blooded killing rises to the surface once more – but someone is watching this time. Someone that wants in on the next kill. This proves to be difficult when a detective that has been chasing the “Thumb Print” killer for years is now grasping at their coat tails.
Mr. Brooks is by far one of the most intelligent, original thriller I have seen in years. Kevin Costner is the lead in this film and plays Mr. Brooks very convincingly (outside of a few lines at the very beginning that didn’t sound natural or believable, but I think they could be chalked up to his character being nervous). If this film truly is the first of three films, like Costner claims it to be, he is looking to be the Hannibal Lecter of this decade.
William Hurt plays the role of the murderous alter ego, Marshall (don’t worry, this isn’t a big twist, it is presented within the first five minutes of the film), and does an absolutely phenomenal job. I would venture to say that he almost overshadows Costner’s performance. They really did amazing work together. A lot of the physical action that Mr. Brook and Marshall do are the same and at the same time ( I picked up on this during the second viewing) and even their laugh is almost identical. It is really disturbing and really incredible. I think it adds another level to film even though it is a real subtle thing.
Dane Cook is also in this film, and believe it or not he does an excellent job as well. He provides his own dark comedic dialog that brings a sense of relief in times of the intense drama. If you have seen his stand up shows, you probably know that he is really over the top with his movements and voice but none of this shows up in his role. He plays a normal, everyday guy with a morbidly curious dark side. Dane Cook’s character is Mr. Smith and without him, the story wouldn’t be as creative and original as it is.
The film has an overall glossy, yet dark look and feel to it and is highly stylized. Almost every shot in the movie was done with a tripod base or some form of steadi-cam unit, giving it an extremely smooth, flowing look. There are a few hand held shots, mostly when someone is in a car or during some of the more action filled scenes. It was nothing that was extremely new (I mean not every movie can look like 300 can it?) but it was fitting with the genre the film is in and it complemented the story very well.
There is a scene in Mr. Brooks when Mr. Brooks and Mr. Smith are driving around and scouting out a victim. This is a particularly disturbing scene. It kind of gave me a real sense of paranoia that anyone at any given time could be looking at me and waiting for the perfect chance to spill my guts onto the floor and turn me into a lamp shade that would go nicely with their recently purchased, and ironically leather, wrap around couch. I think that is part of what the makers of them film wanted to do with it. It’s scary not because it’s jumping out at you and extremely gory (though it does have its moments), it’s scary because it seems real and it seems like it could happen to you. I loved that aspect of the film
There really isn’t much I can say that was bad about this film. I enjoyed it a lot and it is a movie I am going to have to add to my collection sometime in the near future. My only real grievance with Mr. Brooks is that the ending felt rushed. The movie is already two hours long, so I don’t know that it needed to be any longer, but possibly some editing could have been done to trim it down a bit and that way there could have been more time to space the ending out a bit.
This is definitely a movie to see for fans of psychological thrillers. It has to be one of the best ones I’ve seen in recent memory. I can only hope that Costner wasn’t lying when he said there might be two more films to this story on the way. I give this movie 4 out of 5 perfectly crafted murders.
Until Next Time – Stay Young, You’ll Live Longer.
