Mr. Brooks Critic Reviews

The appeal of Mr. Brooks is as obvious as it is hard to resist: Kevin Costner as a serial killer.Read the full review

Listen to me: trash can surprise you. So don't get all elitist about the so-called cheap thrills in Mr. Brooks.Read the full review

A curious mix of the campy and the intelligent, of high concept and low psychology. In spite of these contradictions, or perhaps because of them, it works. This is a tense and engaging thriller.Read the full review

A fertile example of the Studio Film Gone Berserk, where too many characters and too many story lines geometrically progress until a level of blissful absurdity is reached.Read the full review

Mr. Brooks is most effective when it's dealing with Earl and his conscience. Hurt and Costner are terrific together as two sides of the same personality and, again, the casting is what it's all about.Read the full review

What compels then isn't the overwrought plot, but the simpler things, the dynamics between the actors, the avuncularity between old pros Costner and Hurt and the class condescension between Costner and Cook. It has a fascinatin' rhythm.Read the full review

Sadly, only Hurt seems to recognize that the only way to make this material work is to play it with lunatic enthusiasm instead of grave seriousness.Read the full review

Mr. Brooks begins promisingly, but it grows steadily more preposterous as it goes along, becoming the first feel-good serial-killer movie.Read the full review

Evans and Gideon never really succeed in selling the idea that serial killing is a disease -- which would require a degree of realism that the slick, over-plotted Mr. Brooks doesn't otherwise aspire to. They seem to be content with occupying the audience with a series of twists and jolts.Read the full review