Mr. Brooks

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Mr. Brooks
Directed by Bruce A. Evans
Produced by Executive Producers:
Sam Nazarian
Adam Rosenfelt
Marc Schaberg
Thomas Augsberger
Producers:
Jim Wilson
Kevin Costner
Raynold Gideon
Written by Bruce A. Evans
Raynold Gideon
Starring Kevin Costner
Demi Moore
William Hurt
Dane Cook
Danielle Panabaker
Music by Ramin Djawadi
Cinematography John Lindey
Editing by Miklos Wright
Distributed by MGM
Release date(s) June 1, 2007 [1]
Running time 120 minutes
Language English
Budget $20 million
Gross revenue $48,076,072
Official website
IMDb profile

Mr. Brooks is a thriller film directed by Bruce A. Evans and starring Kevin Costner, Demi Moore, Dane Cook and William Hurt. It was released on June 1, 2007. According to interviews with Costner, this is supposedly the first movie in a trilogy.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Earl Brooks (Kevin Costner) is an upstanding business owner and family man, recently honored as the Portland Chamber of Commerce’s Man of the Year (the movie itself was filmed in Shreveport, Louisiana). In his secret life, Brooks is a serial killer, encouraged by his id, manifested as the gleefully sadistic alter ego Marshall (William Hurt). While he has refrained from killing for the last two years, Brooks feels the urge rising once again and, spurred on by Marshall, murders a couple in their home. Despite killing them before noticing that their curtains are open, Brooks follows his meticulous modus operandi, cleaning up the crime scene before departing but also leaving each of the victim's bloody thumbprints on a lampshade.

The next day Brooks attends his weekly meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, where he vaguely reveals his addiction without elaborating on the nature. Soon afterwards, his daughter Jane (Danielle Panabaker) returns home, having abruptly dropped out of college. Jane eventually reveals that she’s pregnant. Even more worrisome is the appearance of a man who calls himself “Mr. Smith” (Dane Cook), a peeping tom who photographed Brooks at the scene of the previous day's crime. Blackmailing him, Mr. Smith demands to accompany Mr. Brooks on his next murder.

They both grow nervous over Portland Detective Tracy Atwood (Demi Moore), chief investigator of the "Thumbprint Killer" case. Brooks hacks into Atwood's personal file and financial records; it turns out that she is an heiress worth more than $60,000,000 who could have gone into the family business but became successful in her own chosen profession. Atwood has many personal problems, including a messy divorce from her sleazy husband Jesse Vialo (Jason Lewis) and concern over Thornton Meeks (Matt Schulze), a serial killer who has escaped prison for the sole intent of killing her.

One day, Brooks finds detectives outside his house, only to realize they are interested in speaking with his daughter, who left school following the murder of a student. Jane professes innocence during questioning, but Brooks deduces that his daughter did indeed commit the murder and is afflicted with the same “addiction” he has. Brooks considers letting her go to jail in the hopes that it might "save" her from becoming like him. However, he decides instead to deflect suspicion by travelling to her college campus in disguise and replicate the hatchet murder, making it appear the two murders are the work of a serial killer.

At the same time, Brooks forms a plan to address Smith's blackmail scheme. He decides that the best course of action for his family is that he be murdered, a decision that infuriates alter ego Marshall, who cannot be seen or heard by anyone but Brooks.

Brooks takes along Smith to infiltrate a high-rise apartment and murder another couple. They are revealed to be Atwood's greedy estranged husband and his divorce attorney (Reiko Aylesworth). The double homicide comes off, but not before an overly excited Smith wets himself on the floor of the apartment.

Atwood requests a search warrant and goes to Smith's apartment, now believing him to be the Thumbprint Killer. She finds it empty, except for an invoice with the furniture's forwarding address.

Despite the attempt of Atwood's partner to bring her in for questioning in the killing of her estranged husband, she gets away. The furniture movers' address planted in Smith's apartment turns out to be Meeks' hideout. In the ensuing gunfight, she wounds both Meeks and his girlfriend. Meeks kills the girlfriend and commits suicide.

Smith pulls a gun on Brooks, who calmly reveals his intention to die at Smith's hands and spare his family the shame of his eventual arrest. The two go to a cemetery that Brooks happens to own. Earl stands in front of an open grave and beckons Smith to shoot him. Smith squeezes the trigger, but the gun doesn't fire. Brooks reveals that he disabled the gun, just in case he should change his mind about being killed. As he faced death, he realized he wants to live to see his unborn grandchild. Brooks then kills Smith and rolls him into the grave.

With Smith's urine providing the only DNA sample of the Thumbprint Killer at the murder scene, Brooks continues to be beyond suspicion.

He returns to his normal life, anonymously phoning Atwood to find out why she became a cop. She tells him that she chose her career to prove her unloving father wrong.

Later that night, Brooks goes to bed, stopping first in his daughter's bedroom. As he kisses her, she stabs him in the neck with a pair of scissors and watches him bleed to death. Then she puts on his glasses.

Brooks wakes up, shuddering at the nightmare, and feverishly begins to pray.

[edit] Cast

Actor Role
Kevin Costner Earl Brooks
Demi Moore Detective Tracy Atwood
Dane Cook Mr. Smith/Mr. Bafford
William Hurt Marshall
Marg Helgenberger Emma Brooks
Ruben Santiago-Hudson Hawkins
Danielle Panabaker Jane Brooks
Aisha Hinds Nancy Hart
Lindsay Crouse Captain Lister
Jason Lewis Jesse Vialo
Reiko Aylesworth Sheila
Matt Schulze Thornton Meeks
Yasmine Delawari Sunday
Traci Dinwiddie Sarah Leaves

[edit] Critical reception

The film received mixed reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 56 percent of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 149 reviews — with the consensus being, "The setup is intriguing, but Mr. Brooks overstuffs itself with twists and subplots, becoming more preposterous as it goes along."[1] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 45 out of 100, based on 34 reviews.[2]

According to boxofficemojo.com, Mr. Brooks had a domestic box-office gross of $28,549,298 and a worldwide one of $48,091,865.

[edit] Blu-ray & DVD release

The film was released on October 23, 2007 on both high-definition Blu-ray Disc and standard-definition DVD.

[edit] Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack features Ramin Djawadi's score and the song "Vicious Traditions" by The Veils.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Mr. Brooks - Movie Reviews, Trailers, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on 2008-02-15.
  2. ^ Mr. Brooks (2007): Reviews. Metacritic. Retrieved on 2008-02-15.

[edit] External links