Mr. Brooks

Kevin Costner plays an upstanding member of the community, avid potter and caring father who happens to moonlight as a schizophrenic serial killer. Costner is fine in the role but Demi Moore, who surfaces as the tomboy detective on his trail, is badly miscast. She's presented as a grizzled veteran of the force with several shades of action hero, but when we see the character in motion it's an awkward, stiff, uncomfortable exercise. Dane Cook is bafflingly tossed into the mix, too, as a wannabe killer who blackmails his way into private lessons with the master. The curious decision to take a serious role does him no favors. There's some promise to the concept, but the script simply doesn't trust its viewers to work things out for themselves and delights in presenting, then abandoning, boatloads of trivial plot threads. Clearly written with a franchise in mind, it saves too much meat for later installments, which leaves this first chapter feeling thin and watered-down. Hammy, forced and predictable, with a fistful of groan-worthy clichés, it's akin to a bad season of Dexter.

Surprisingly intense thriller with a standout performance by Demi Moore. Kevin Costner has the more showy role, to be sure, but Demi steals her scenes IMHO. William Hurt is the proper amount of creepy which I think foreshadows his work later on "Goliath." I hear they were thinking this could have been a trilogy and while I'm curious where that would have gone, I think it is better here as a one off. The less said about Dane Cook, the better.