Mr Brooks

Unlike some of his fellow stars from the big movies of the 1990s, such as Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks, Kevin Costner has struggled to escape from his career defining roles of that period. Perhaps more so than the two of them, it is hard to see anyone else but Kevin Costner in his roles. Some of his harshest critics have said that he simply can’t act. But then came Mr Brooks. This is an eerie American Psycho-esque serial killer film. Perhaps following Robin Williams’ dark turn in One Hour Photo and Insomnia, Costner decided to do the same. He is suitably creepy in this role, for the vey reason that he is Kevin Costner. Unfortunately, however, there is a lot about this movie that doesn’t make much sense. A much better film could have been made here, but it was sacrificed to some tired cliches, and some unnecessary side-plots and characters. Apparently the intention was to make a trilogy, and you can see there was some potential here, but poor performance at the box office put an end to that. It is a shame, especially as most money in Hollywood is being pumped into super hero franchises rather than original stories, but equally the writers here could have done so much more with this (or rather so much less), to have made a compelling film and character that people would’ve wanted to see again and again.