Mr. Brooks

[Remo D]

It never fails--when one considers the "horror" year at hand, there's always the serial killer film or two that asks "is this a horror film or not?" to get into the mix. And the answer always depends on how the material is TREATED.

MR. BROOKS gives us the star power that no routine slasher film ever could. The established stars such as Kevin Costner, William Hurt and Demi Moore combined with the newly hot comedian Dane Cook. Okay--very quickly now--besides Robert Englund, who else starred in FREDDY VS. JASON? Ummm... point made.

A few years back, I wondered if TAKING LIVES qualified as a horror film. Not really, but it did have the best "jump" of the year. As for MR. BROOKS? No great "jumps," but it's still an excellent take on psychological horror and the sort of thing you wish Alfred Hitchcock had lived to see.

It was easy to slag Kevin Costner as the latest Michael Cimino. You remember--after THE DEER HUNTER, he gave us HEAVEN'S GATE, etc? Where is the wunderkind NOW? And after DANCES WITH WOLVES, we got such high-profile flops as WYATT EARP, WATERWORLD and THE POSTMAN. It didn't seem like anything with Costner's name attached to it would ever attract business again (even though I rather liked DRAGONFLY). And yet there's something about Costner's star power that still works, and there's nothing to complain about when he's doing his thing in FRONT of the camera.

And let me tell you--MR. BROOKS gives us one of Costner's best roles ever. He's addicted to murder, and he KNOWS it--if it was his choice, he'd be happy to stop. But try telling that to his imaginary friend (William Hurt).

Well, after two years "sober," Mr. Brooks caves in and gives it another shot--this time attracting the attention of Dane Cook as "Mr. Smith" (between us, I've never seen Cook's stand-up act so much as once, but let me assure you that he is EXCELLENT in this role)--not to mention police detective Demi Moore... who has a previous serial killer capture of her OWN on her tail.

And life goes on--his daughter drops out of school and comes back home with an eye on the family business! But is that ALL...?

Okay--we're living in a world in which there's a different serial killer around every corner--and the movie wants you to root for the one who at least KNOWS that he's doing something "wrong."

Yep--we've reached "just different enough to work" time again, and when you've got a cast like this, you simply can't go wrong. Oh, you can make the occasional misstep (I would suggest that the entire subplot involving the psycho-killer known as the Hangman could have been jettisoned in the ultimate favor of the film), but when you have this much working FOR you, you've got an all-but-guaranteed audience pleaser.

Fine--open this in the blitz of the summer movie season and see how it does, but that isn't any reflection on the film itself. Personally, I'll take BUG or MR. BROOKS over the ogre, the pirate or the Surfer any day.

In the meantime, I thoroughly recommend MR. BROOKS to everyone who'd like something a little less "blockbuster."