Mr. Brooks

Directed by Bruce A. Evans

In Mr. Brooks, Kevin Costner plays a rich, powerful, self-made businessman who’s also a serial killer, a role that’s a metaphor for wealth and reputation that typically go unexamined in contemporary America. It’s an almost-clever idea that complements the Elvis metaphor Costner used in 3000 Miles to Graceland. But Mr. Brooks’ conceit is a little too daring to succeed. Director-writer Bruce A. Evans makes the mistake of imitating the style and tone of less thoughtful serial killer movies like The Talented Mr. Ripley and Zodiac. An American movie about how people justify their personal morality and guilt stands a chance of being the most pertinent movie of the era, however Mr. Brooks is Dark, Tense, Suspenseful as well as Loud, Bloody and Gruesome—which means its witty concept goes into the gutter.

Costner and Evans’ decision to play it safe by appealing to the thriller market second-guesses their own instincts. (Haven’t they seen Monsieur Verdoux?) Mr. Brooks intends to humanize its murderous protagonist by making him suffer. He goes to AA meetings, claiming to be an addict and is accompanied on his murder sprees by his nagging id—a haughty Jiminy Cricket—played by William Hurt. Duets between Costner and Hurt are Actors’ Studio fun, especially when they outwit Dane Cook as a blood-thirsty perv threatening to expose Brooks. However, the story of guilt-racked American success doesn’t work with the ludicrous subplots about homicide detective Demi Moore and Brooks’ pregnant unwed daughter.

From murder to divorce to abortion, Mr. Brooks raises those issues in order to make them contemporary and personal. When Brooks notices his sins coming home to roost, his fatherly lament is remarkably heartfelt. Brooks’ moment of anguish says what Don Vito Corleone never said to Michael. It’s a credible moral assessment, but all too brief.