“You always want to invest in things people can’t do without. Water and cemeteries… pretty safe bets.”

Anthony’s rating: Good enough to help forget The Postman

Anthony’s review: I always loved Kevin Costner’s on-screen charisma since his break-out turn in Silverado, but the strings of (let’s be frank) turkeys he dished out following his Oscar-win for Dances With Wolves made me doubt his sanity. The new millennium saw a more mature and quality-oriented Costner dwelling in unjustly overlooked gems like Open Range (arguably the greatest Western since Unforgiven), Thirteen Days, and Upside of Anger. And then in 2007, his turn in Mr. Brooks simply blew my mind.

This story centres on the titular character, a wealthy pillar of the community and beloved family man who must contend with an imaginary friend/split personality. Said friend, Marshall (William Hurt), also comes with a monkey on Brooks’ back: He’s addicted to murder. Not a psycho, not a serial killer, an “addict.”

After being clean for a spell (Brooks attends AA meetings, which is an interesting way to manage one’s own homicidal urges), Marshall’s insistence to indulge in “just one more” threatens to shatter Brooks’ carefully planned double-life, especially after an amateur photographer blackmails him into an apprenticeship and a stop-at-nothing cop gets closer than anyone ever did to finally catching him. To make matters even worse, his 18-year-old daughter might be turning into a chip off the old block.

The film succeeds and surprises on many levels, starting with side-stepping the pitfalls of such a setting, as the “Imaginary Friend” is never labelled or diagnosed thus allowing us freedom with our own imagination. Then the tough-gal cop (played by an unusually sympathetic Demi Moore, at least unusually for me because I always had a hard time liking her in anything except Mortal Thoughts) shows more layers than the standard screen sleuth. The high-energy soundtrack keeps up the engaging tone and pace, and the story itself sports many non-formulaic (if sometimes expected) twists.

But the greatest stroke of genius is casting William Hurt as an evil Drop Dead Fred. Both he and Costner share such a natural and tangible chemistry that you feel like watching two guys who really did spend years in a toxic relationship. Their split-personality characters feel more like siblings — rivalry and complicity included. And in Hurt’s case, being a real-life recovering alcoholic who’s been in his share of self-destructive relationships makes his turn all the more infuse with depth and credibility (look up his “romance” with Marlee Matlin, you’re welcome you drama fans).

Not all the cast works though, and it’s not necessarily the actors’ fault. First off, Marg Helgenberger, whose screen presence and gravitas helped elevate the original CSI into more than just a CBS procedural and her role in it into more than just a token brainy-lady, here does the absolute opposite. Maybe it was the intention all along and it just flew right over my head, but her character feels spectacularly generic and could have been played by just about any actress who’s able to smile as long as the cameras roll. Just like Winona Ryder in The Iceman or Frances Fisher in Gone in 60 Seconds, you have to ask why recruit such a strong and renowned talent only to make her watch paint dry?

Then there’s Dane Cook. I don’t know what it is about him, but if someone tells me he’s an absolute and irredeemable jerk off screen, I shall believe it wholesale. I just dislike him tremendously the moment his face shows up in anything, and around that time his face showed up in everything. This conspired to take me out of the film and make it just a little bit harder to enjoy. Again, maybe it was intentional, because his being so unlikable serves quite a purpose in the story. “Even if that guy was charming and funny,” says Marshall of his character Mr. Smith, “I still wouldn’t like him.” Word, brother.

Oh, and Danielle Panabaker, she of the CW’s The Flash, plays the daughter. Honestly, all she did is make me wonder if maybe Amber Tamblyn might have been a much better choice.

I don’t think I’ll ever understand why so many people I recommended it to downright hated this film. I personally enjoyed it a lot and would have liked it that much more if the original plan, which according to Costner was to make it a trilogy, had come to fruition. Alas, writer-director Bruce A Evans, who has writing credits on Carpenter’s Starman and Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me, never wrote nor directed anything after this one failed to meet expectations. If you share my sometimes dark-ish sense of humor, you might say Mr. Brooks killed his career.

Intermission!

• Fun Fact: Uwe Boll wanted Costner to star in In the Name of the King, Kev instead offered him to direct this one. I’d love to have a window into an alternate reality where either happened, the scale of potential disaster is flabbergasting.
• What’s so bad about doing it with the curtains open? Live a little you judgmental figment of imagination!
• “Tsh-tsh-tsh!” Even when imitating the sound of a camera shutter Dane Cook manages to annoy me!
• “An asshole’s an asshole!” Dane Cook himself mouths what I can’t stop thinking!
• Costner in a pick-up truck and hillbilly disguise strangely perverts his Field of Dreams farmer persona.
• No kidding, my grandmother travelled around a lot alone in her car and carried a hatchet just like that one for protection. Loved her, but sometimes she scared the shit out of me.
• Aisha, Aisha, écoute-moi… it’s an earworm, what can I say, I hear that song every time I see her, makes watching the 9-1-1 show pretty annoying.
• Seriously, why does NO ONE ever think of getting out of a carjacking THAT way?
• Shovel for the WIIIIIIIIN!