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Movies / Upcoming / Mr. Brooks
Mr. Brooks

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Mr. Brooks (2007)

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Reviews Counted:149

Fresh:83

Rotten:66

Average Rating:5.7/10

Consensus: The setup is intriguing, but Mr. Brooks overstuffs itself with twists and subplots, becoming more preposterous as it goes along.

Runtime: 2 hrs

Genre: Detectives, Switching Roles, Thriller, Murder, Theatrical Release, Crime, Serial Killers

US Box Office: $28,424,648

Synopsis: Kevin Costner stars as Earl Brooks, a man whose seemingly perfect family and status in the community hide an ugly secret. Brooks constantly says the plea of an addict--the Serenity Prayer--but he's... Kevin Costner stars as Earl Brooks, a man whose seemingly perfect family and status in the community hide an ugly secret. Brooks constantly says the plea of an addict--the Serenity Prayer--but he's not in the grip of drugs or alcohol. Instead, his neat little bow tie belies a man with an urge to kill. Though he's staved off that desire for two years, it has returned thanks to the efforts of his evil inner voice (William Hurt, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE). He is caught in the act by a man who calls himself Mr. Smith (Dane Cook, EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH), but Mr. Smith doesn't want to turn Brooks in. The smarmy amateur photographer wants to learn from Brooks's methodical ways and become a killer himself. Meanwhile, a tough cop (Demi Moore, BOBBY) hunts for the man responsible for deaths all over Portland while she deals with issues in her own life. MR. BROOKS presents a fascinating portrait of a man at war with himself. As the devil on Brooks's shoulder, Oscar winner Hurt adeptly alternates between menace and glee, adding to a resume already replete with varied roles. Though Costner is mostly known for playing nice guys (FIELD OF DREAMS) and charming rogues (BULL DURHAM), his performance as the tortured killer is interesting to watch, and he rises to the challenge of playing a completely different character than the kind he is known for. MR. BROOKS is an engaging thriller that goes into the fractured mind of a murderer, while also delivering an intriguing maze of multiple subplots. [More]

Starring: Kevin Costner, William Hurt, Demi Moore, Dane Cook

Starring: Kevin Costner, William Hurt, Demi Moore, Dane Cook, Marg Helgenberger, Jason Lewis, Yasmine Delawari, Michael Cole

Director: Bruce A. Evans

Director: Bruce A. Evans
Screenwriter: Bruce A. Evans, Raynold Gideon
Producer: Kevin Costner, Raynold Gideon, Jim Wilson
Studio: MGM

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Reviews for Mr. Brooks

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61 - 80 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Text View | |< << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 >> >|
Arrange By:Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date
 
 

Quite a few plot lines and character quandaries remain unresolved. And yet the movie makes sense as it stands. After all, one can never know what makes a psychopath tick.

Full Review Source: Toronto Star | comment Comment
06/01/07
Susan Walker
Susan Walker
Toronto Star

Certainly more genuinely creepy than many recent thrillers, and the supporting cast is effective.

Full Review Source: Seattle Times | comment Comment
06/01/07
Moira MacDonald
Moira MacDonald
Seattle Times

Mr. Brooks does work up some clammy tension. The script has bite.

Full Review Source: San Diego Union-Tribune | comment Comment
06/01/07
David Elliott
David Elliott
San Diego Union-Tribune

Not just a guilty pleasure but a truly queasy one.

Full Review Source: Sacramento Bee | comment Comment
06/01/07
Carla Meyer
Carla Meyer
Sacramento Bee

The movie is a missed opportunity. It has all the ingredients of a delightfully twisted, sleek little thriller. But with all that extra padding, Mr. Brooks is just one bloated mess.

Full Review Source: Reel.com | comment Comment
06/01/07
Pam Grady
Pam Grady
Reel.com

Turns out, Portland has more serial and spree killers than coffee shops -- there are still more that figure into the movie's increasingly ludicrous narrative.

Full Review Source: Philadelphia Daily News | comment Comment
06/01/07
Gary Thompson
Gary Thompson
Philadelphia Daily News

You know you're in real trouble when Demi Moore's playing the most sympathetic character you have.

Full Review Source: Newark Star-Ledger | comment Comment
06/01/07
Stephen Whitty
Stephen Whitty
Newark Star-Ledger

Please don’t tell me it was supposed to be played for laughs all along, because I don’t buy it. Too late to save it from doom, the twists and snafus in Mr. Brooks start coming too fast for the audience to absorb, and the movie turns delusional.

Full Review Source: New York Observer | comment Comment
06/01/07
Rex Reed
Rex Reed
New York Observer

A clumsy and facile pulp thriller that is never the sum total of its parts.

Full Review Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | comment Comment
06/01/07
Duane Dudek
Duane Dudek
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Preposterous as Mr. Brooks can get, it's such a well-crafted, intricately devised thriller that its flaws are easy to forgive.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Daily News | comment Comment
06/01/07
Bob Strauss
Bob Strauss
Los Angeles Daily News

There are flashes of near-greatness here, and the moments of dramatic power and aura of moral ambiguity set it apart from just about every other movie out there this season.

Full Review Source: Kansas City Star | comment Comment
06/01/07
Robert W. Butler
Robert W. Butler
Kansas City Star

Mr. Brooks has a crisp, clever script, lacings of black humour, heart-racing pacing and convincing performances.

Full Review Source: Jam! Movies | comment Comment
06/01/07
Liz Braun
Liz Braun
Jam! Movies

In Mr. Brooks, Bruce A. Evans' fitfully subversive approach to the genre, we get a few fresh takes on the psychology of serial killing.

Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle | comment Comment
06/01/07
Amy Biancolli
Amy Biancolli
Houston Chronicle

Totally absurd and equally entertaining.

Full Review Source: New York Daily News | comment Comment
06/01/07
Jack Mathews
Jack Mathews
New York Daily News

The film emerges as a subtle commentary on a disquieting aspect of our current culture -- a commentary on the nature of a masturbatory voyeurism and how it fosters heartlessness by turning other people into objects.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
06/01/07
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
San Francisco Chronicle

The kind of movie that rockets so far beyond the line of credibility and so deeply into the realm of utter stupidity, you start to wonder if the filmmakers aren't putting you on.

Full Review Source: Miami Herald | comment Comment
06/01/07
Rene Rodriguez
Rene Rodriguez
Miami Herald

I count a baker's dozen of movie plots here, a tally so impressive that the qualifier -- all of them are inane -- seems almost ungenerous.

Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | comment Comment
06/01/07
Rick Groen
Rick Groen
Globe and Mail

Far-fetched, flimsy and uninvolving.

Full Review Source: USA Today | comment Comment
06/01/07
Claudia Puig
Claudia Puig
USA Today
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

What starts out as a delightful black comedy and social commentary ends up, at best, as a guilty pleasure where I had a hard time sorting out the intentional from the unintentional laughs.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
06/01/07
Lou Lumenick
Lou Lumenick
New York Post

What pushes Mr. Brooks into 'silly' territory is the way co-writer/director Bruce A. Evans piles on way too many subplots that seem to set up future stories.

Full Review Source: Oregonian | comment Comment
06/01/07
Mike Russell
Mike Russell
Oregonian
 
 
61 - 80 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Text View | |< << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 >> >|
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