The best drama I've seen in-ever. A brilliant symphony of ultra-modern scores that convey a dark passionate plot. Brilliant acting all around, nearly, and wonderful staging. Terrific storytelling that utilizes lighting, music, and staging in ways that fresh and entertaining.

One of the best films, Kevin Costner in one of his best roles ever !!!!!

This movie is why movie critics should be fired. This was campy, creepy fun from the first frame. Hurt, Moore & Costner should be applauded. What a stupid fun movie this is.

A movie with Kevin Costner that's actually good?!? Both Costner and William Hurt play a serial killer and, surprisingly, Costner puts in a decent acting job. Now, on the other hand, Demi Moore is in this movie also, and her performance leaves a lot to be desired. I swear, she's had so many facelifts she can't make any facial expressions! The ending is a bit different too, not your usual happy Hollywood ending...… Expand

At times, yes, I can see how one could fins this complicated. However, with a terrific plot and excellent acting it's easy to get drawn in. This movie is a brilliant psychological drama that just works.

The interplay between Costner and Hurt is amazing. Hurt's best performance in years.

When Mr. Brooks is about Mr. Brooks and his alter-ego Marshall it is a surprisingly good movie. But Mr. Brooks isn't just about Mr. Brooks. There's the creepy peeping -tom who is blackmailing Mr. Brooks who has issues, there's the detective on the case who has issues with an ex-husband who has issues, there's an escaped convict on the loose who has issues, and there�39;s a daughter home from college with issues that might be a little too close to home, and that is the problem with Mr. Brooks. He's a serial killer with too many issues to just be a story about him, which is the best thing about Mr. Brooks underneath all the other issues surrounding him! The makers have certainly set us up for a possible franchise with unlimited sources for a sequel. Costner and Hurt are terrific, I just have issues with all the other characters.… Expand

Despite a pretty cool premise, this movie soon descends into tedium and it actually put me to sleep at times, something I haven't done in a movie theater in years. The plot was interesting. A man is deeply respected in his community, has a loving wife and a daughter in college, and he seems to have a successful job. But by night, he's a serial killer. What could have turned into a fun movie ends up being completely boring as the movie takes itself WAY too seriously despite a very unbelievable premise. The plot also gets scattered, with an additional killer introduced (who has no importance whatsoever to the story) and a divorce that the cop (played by a pretty attractive Demi Moore) is going through...it's all unnecessary and it just slows the movie down. The direction lacks style; the movie just plods along, lazily ambling from scene to scene. Worse is the musical score, which is literally sleep-inducing, even during the (few) action scenes. And I just didn't find the alter-ego scary or intimidating at all. There is really nothing redeemable about this movie at all. When there's blood on the screen (which happens very occasionally) it's interesting but otherwise, this is just a boring movie about boring people talking about boring things. Demi Moore's police investigation is the only plot here that's mildly interesting and had this movie been released in the 90's it may have worked. But with so many shows like CSI, there's really no reason to go to the movies to see something like this. Just not recommended. A pretty big waste of time. Boring.… Expand

So much fun...William Hurt is amazing. A very twisted flim, yet I laughed a lot...great thrill ride.

This was a very solid thriller. I thought it was well done and the dialogue and interplay between Costner and Hurt is excellent. Definitely worth watching.

One of the worst movies that I have seen in years! The whole thing was dreadful! I knew what the dialogue was going to be several times before it was spoken. It was so bad that it was funny. Made "The DaVinci Code" look like an academy award winner! Just revoltlngly bady!

Really enjoyed the film. Had some interesting twists and turns.

ABSOLUTELY amazing movie... well done in every sense of the word... the acting is terrific.

What a convoluted, plot-holed piece of crap. an awful movie.

The critics are way off here. I think they just generally don't like movies about serial killers, unless they're moralistic. I've noticed the same with some other movies (like Captivity). IF the subject matter interests you, this movie is done about as well as it's possible to do. A perfect gem of a script with excellent acting. I rate it an 8 rather than a 9 or 10 because I feel it has no big message to impart; it will change no one's life. But it's well-crafted.IF the story doesn't interest you, don't watch it.… Expand

Best movie I've seen in years, worth much more than a 45.

The best part of this film are the laughs of Kevin and the other guy.

Absolutely entertaining...something different and fascinating...fast paced and well acted.

Truly disturbing because of how well you can relate to the protagonist without being insane.

Great movie. Both my wife and I enjoyed it very much and so did the rest of the theater. Had some funny moments between Costner and his alter ego hurt. I don't understand why the critics have ripped it so badly. I thought it was a lot of fun.

The worst movie I've seen this summer. Even worse than Shrek the Third. Dane Cook thinks all it takes to be a dramatic actor is to gain 40 pounds, shave your head and grow a beard. It may work for Tom Hanks but Cook is better off screaming into a microphone and doing DVD signings at your local Wal-Mart.

Demi Moore isn't half-bad as an heiress-turned-detective(in what seems like her demo reel for serial television work), but her storyline isn't always ancilliary to the main narrative. "Mr. Brooks" would be a leaner, more focused work if the filmmaker edited out the bit about the avenging parolee. The two action scenes between Detective Atwood and the renegade couple has you asking yourself, "What were they thinking?" Too bad, because the on-screen presence of a person's consciousness actually works this time(much better than it did in Luc Besson's "The Messenger"), especially when Earl Brooks(Kevin Costner) and his id(William Hurt) are in perfect alignment (Marshall stops playing devil's advocate and joins Mr. Brooks in a good laugh). Billed as Costner's first bad guy-role, the sometimes effective("Field of Dreams", "The Upside of Anger"), sometimes not("The Postman", "Waterworld", etc.) actor doesn't go all the way as Denzel Washington did in "Training Day"(Costner still gets to cry), but it's good to see him shoot some people for a change. A little less Moore and better editing late in the story(an on-screen murder looks like Earl's work, but it's not, I think), and "Mr. Brooks" could've been Kevin Costner's "Collateral".… Expand

Kevin Costner and William Hurt Make One The Most Disturbing and Yet Amusing Pairs I've Seen In A Movie. If Demi Moore Hadn't Been So Stereotypically Lame In Her Performance The Movies Awe Might Have Been Preserved.

Mr. Brooks is a clique film, there's no surprise there. but those cliques end up turning into an original and shocking film that you just can't resist. Mr. Brooks delves into deep into the psychological aspect of Multiple Split Personality Disorder or MSPD for short. The films show a man battling with himself, trying to fight the urges to kill. But his other half has such control over him and his desires that Earl Brooks just can't help himself. Mr. Brooks works very well as a film. It tells a story that very few people can relate but most of us can understand, A man battling his inner demons. Trying to resist the urge to kill, trying but failing to break the habit; but the one big question you should be asking yourself is not why but how. How can a mild mannered businessman and father turn into such a monster? That's the big question, and here's the answer, we may never know. Or perhaps we are not meant to know. Mr. Brooks is an amazing film that blends mind blowing suspense and horror that will leave you looking over your shoulders for weeks. I very, very highly recommend this movie.… Expand

I liked this film for the same reasons everyone else did. What creeped me out more than the excellent suspense and acting of this film is how the paid critics panned it. Generally a film has to fail to kow tow to some PC ethic to be so badly critiqued. Does anyone know who the director pissed off? A lesson to all to pay equal attention to what John Q. Public thinks?

I thought this was one of the best thrillers I've seen in a long time. Most definately the best performance Kevin Coster has ever done.

no one focused on the daughter, she too played a good role and Kostner played w/ great chemistry aside Hurt. Not many movies make you relate to the killers emotion like this!

Some movies work well while you're in the theater...but two weeks later, you kick yourself for enjoying them (if you remember very much about them two weeks later, that is). With others, buyers' remorse sets in the morning after; with Mr. Brooks, I started second-guessing myself about five minutes after the closing credits! Kevin Costner plays Earl Brooks, a successful businessman, solid citizen and pillar of the community (he's even seen receiving a "Man of the Year" award in the opening scenes) who also happens to be a serial killer. Nobody knows about his double life: not his cute-but-clueless wife (CSI's Marg Helgenberger, who's wasted here), and not the cop who's relentlessly been tracking his killings for years without knowing who did them (Demi Moore, who very effectively rechannels the trademark steely screen persona she's honed in A Few Good Men and G.I. Jane...in fact, virtually every movie she's made except Ghost, which writers Raynold Gideon and Bruce A. Evans brazenly make an in-joke reference to). All of this, though, is about to change, thanks to a sleazy blackmailer who's even sicker than Earl is (matter-of-taste comic Dane Cook, in a role that should delight his fans and haters alike, but for completely different reasons). Gideon and director Evans's most blatantly theatrical flourish is to feature William Hurt as Marshall, a sort of poisonous Jiminy Cricket, who keeps egging Earl on and giving him practical tips; only Earl sees and hears Marshall, and nobody else is aware at all that Earl is continually talking to "himself". This risky technique is very well handled, and I equally admired the way that Mr. Brooks' makers keep stirring extra elements into the mix, including but not limited to parallel killers, wannabe killers, almost murderously acrimonious marriages and apples that don't fall too far from trees; Gideon and Evans are expert jugglers who don't drop any balls. At first glance, their relative restraint in depicting Earl's handiwork--the movie doesn't get really gory until near the end--is seemingly admirable in this, the Age of Eli Roth...but this is where things start to unravel. Nearly all of Earl's victims are truly despicable human beings, and the one exception is someone we don't see or learn about at all because Earl, who kills him or her in a track-covering move, does so completely off-screen. This has the effect of minimizing Earl's crime in much the same way that 1959's true-life courtroom drama Complusion despicably argued against the death penalty for Leopold and Loeb for kidnapping and killing a ten-year-old boy by never showing the child, therefore implying that the victim really doesn't matter all that much. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this movie making its antihero charming or likable--that's the whole point in casting Costner in this radical change-of-pace role!--but keep in mind that the three sequels to Hitchcock's Psycho that were produced in the 1980s and 90s were predicated on the audience caring so much about the even more endearing Norman Bates that they wanted him to NOT kill again...not to keep doing it scot-free. To use Mr. Brooks' own analogy of depicting him as an "addict" (he even goes to AA meetings without revealing the specific nature of his addiction) , how would this movie be received if Earl were actually an alcoholic and the story asked us to root for him to continue driving drunk, plowing into carloads full of families, getting away with it and continuing to slug down his booze? Amorality in movies can often be fairly harmless (as in most heist movies), but at the risk of sounding like somebody who longs for the good old days of the Hays Code (which I most certainly am NOT!), immorality is a different matter altogether, and there's something truly insidious about a big-budget, mainstream all-star movie that manipulates its audience into rooting for a sociopathic mass murderer to keep up the good work. I'll grit my teeth and reluctantly give Mr. Brooks a green light because it did so very skillfully and successfully while it was unfolding onscreen, but to stop there is like praising the construction of the Auschwitz gas chambers from an architectural or mechanical point of view while completely ignoring what it is that they were designed to do.… Expand

A pleasant surprise. The bi-polar critics reflect accurately on Mr. Brooks bi-polar struggle between dad and serial killer. Is it contrived? Yes, but what big$ production isn't? My wife and I both loved the thick plot, even with all its excess.

Excellent movie. While I generally agree with the critics, they got this film all wrong! Great movie!

The movie was great for the first 20 mins or so, but then started getting worse and worse. There were multi plots happening, it felt like the writers were running out of ideas. They were coming up with these stupid ideas left and right. Avoid this movie!

Yeah...this may not be a movie you nominate for an award, but it is delightful per se. The only bad thing about the movie, was, in my opinion, Demi Moore! Further, I'll have disagree with those who call it 'convoluted' for there is no such convolution. Actually, Mr. Brooks is quite clear, and easy to follow, engaging and dynamic; although it may definitely be predictable in some moments and there was room for improvement, it was still a good film. What I like the most are Coster and Hurt's performances...you even get to emphatize with them and like them. Their interplay is delightful, it was refreshing watching and listening to their characters interactions. Finally, as others, I too think that critics have been too harsh, they have missed the point of Mr. Brooks...while they often sometimes praise movies that are below the average. That is why critics should never be taken too seriously since all of them -for good or for bad- have a background that shapes their perception of a film...they do have bias, just as much as we do too.… Expand

I loved this movie and I think it deserves an 8 because yes the movie had just the right amount of tension and you felt for the characters. The only thing that I wish was in this movie was a couple of flash backs to show how he started. I would love to see a pre-qual to this movie to see the start of Mr. Brooks and then the movie could leave off where this movie started.