The year 2007 has already offered up some grade-A stinkers (I’m looking in your general direction, Premonition…), but some pals and I were recently perusing the summer slate, trying to suss out a few of the certain bombs-in-waiting amidst all those gaudy sequels and franchise pictures. One of my friends rightly seized on Element Films and MGM’s Mr. Brooks. To wit, he wrote:
“Okay, so here’s my pick for 2007’s WTF special: Kevin
Costner is a respectable businessman who has a secret life as a serial killer.
Demi Moore is the cop trying to bring him down. Already we’ve got that
delicious I Love the Early ’90s Halloween Reunion Special feel.
murderous id that drives him to kill, script and direction by Bruce Evans (previous
writing credits: Cutthroat Island, Jungle 2 Jungle; only directing credit: Kuffs) and a June 1 release date, and
you start to see we really have something special here.”
And he’s right, you know. The trailer offers up some hilarious shorthand (why, he’s the Portland Chamber of Commerce man of the year!),
and very little to indicate a particularly deft or invigorating handling of the “personified id” element. Failing some sort of very fancy, purposefully convoluted hook (and I can only really think of two or three possibilities), this looks like a free money giveaway to a couple stars who maybe haven’t recently been offered quite as many cushy major studio flick paydays as in years past. (As for Hurt, well, I don’t begrudge him a mortgage payment or three, though it’ll be interesting to see if he conveys menace through trademark Whispery Solemn Hurt, or a slightly newfangled iteration of his zonked-out, Oscar-nominated crime boss in A History of Violence.)
Toss in the aforementioned talents of Evans and comedian Dane Cook as an amateur photographer with an apparent penchant for blackmail and yes, Mr. Brooks looks like it has some potential, all right. For a look at the film’s trailer, click here.