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Mr. Brooks
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Fox/MGM Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak (12th December 2007). |
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The Film
 Earl Brookes (Kevin Costner) is an extremely successful and award winning businessman with a happy marriage and a daughter in college; he's also a serial killer who's constantly in a battle of wills with his alter ego Marshall (William Hurt) over his compulsion for murder. While his meticulously planned crimes have left him virtually impossible to catch, one mistake brings the attention of a blackmailer (Dane Cook) and the cop who has been tracking him (Demi Moore). I must admit I wasn't expecting much from this film even though I'd heard some good 'word of mouth'. Apart from the excellent western "Open Range" in 2003 I hadn't been too impressed with much that Costner had done in the last dozen or so years. After a string of great performances in great films like "No Way Out" (1987), "The Untouchables" (1987), "Bull Durham" (1988), "Dances with Wolves" (1990), "JFK" (1991), and "A Perfect World" (1993) he started to settle for roles in far more predictable and commercial films ("The Bodyguard" (1992) and the terrible vanity project "The Postman" (1997)). Not known for playing bad guy roles (even though he was outstanding as an escaped killer who kidnaps a small boy in "A Perfect World") he seems at first a surprising choice, but as it turns out a natural and inspired choice for the role of the methodical and cold blooded killer who seems like the upstanding family man. People who have unknowingly been acquainted with serial killers often say they had no idea because "he was always such a nice, normal guy". Costner is able to use his screen image of clean cut decency to really chilling effect and gives a fantastic performance. The same goes for William Hurt and Demi Moore. Hurt follows up recent villainous roles in "A History of Violence" (2005) and 'The Battleground' segment of the "Nightmares and Dreamscapes" (2006) mini-series with another quite different one here as Marshall, the psychopathic side of Brooks' personality who's only visible to him and the audience. It's a clever idea that shows us the turmoil going on in Brook's mind. Through the conversations they share, and with the great chemistry between the two, both characters end up almost likeable. Moore's role as the flawed and troubled police officer in charge of catching the elusive killer is her second impressive performance after the alcoholic cabaret singer in "Bobby" last year and deserves to lead to her being offered starring roles again. The only weak point is usual comedian Dane Cook as the creepy Mr. Smith. He is okay in his first dramatic role, but he's nowhere near as good as the other leads. It's a pity the preferred choice for the role, Zach Braff, had not been available. A well paced psychological thriller full of intelligent ideas, Mr. Brooks is a nice alternative to the torture type horrors that seem to have taken over lately.
Video
This film is presented in its original theatrical ratio of 1.85:1 this widescreen transfer is in 1080p high-definition 24/fps and has been created using AVC MPEG-4 compression. This transfer is a bit of a mixed bag, while a large part of the image is sharp, finely detailed and rich the darker more dimly lit scenes tend to suffer from a bit of noise usually attributed to grain making the black levels a bit on the murky side and a bit distracting. The image however is clean, colors appear accurate including skin tone and overall it's a fairly ok effort, unfortunately ok is about all it'll get at this point and the image could have been better in my opinion especially for such a recent release.
Audio
Two audio tracks are included in English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 or Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1, the DTS-HD track is the one chosen to view the film with and it's an impressive soundtrack that holds up fairly well top most recent uncompressed PCM tracks. The sound field is rich and features a depth that immerses the viewer while attacking a broad range from ambient sounds that establish atmosphere and environment to the more aggressive sounds that feature in the film's more exciting moments including the score. The dialogue is also clear and distortion free, home theater enthusiasts will likely get a kick out of this strong audio track. Optional subtitles are included in English for the hearing impaired and Spanish.
Extras
Fox has released this film with an audio commentary, three featurettes, deleted scenes, a theatrical trailer, bonus trailers and a trivia track. Below is a closer look at these supplements. First up is a feature-length audio commentary with director/co-writer Bruce A. Evans and co-writer/co-producer Raynold Gideon. Throughout this track these two comment on getting Costner involved in the film and the challenge it posed considering he loved the script but was initially unsure about playing the role. They comment on the rest of the cast and how these players fell into place. Interestingly they talk about the writing process and wanting to do something different than what they've done in the past and the research they did for the film. They take us through the rehearsal process, finding the right locations include the 'murder house', in fact they talk a lot about the locations used for the film and that gets a bit boring but they tend to mix it up and cover other aspects of the production including behind-the-scenes trivia and working with the cast among other things in this screen-specific track. "The Birth of a Serial Killer: The Writing of Mr. Brooks" is a featurette that runs for 7 minutes 26 seconds and takes a closer look at the writing process, creating a film about obsession and addiction and also moving away from the kid-friendly films the two writers were known for as well commenting on the characters and an equal amount of time is also dedicated to letting us know how great everyone was and how wonderful the script was. Next is "Murder on Their Minds: Mr. Brooks, Marshall and Mr. Smith" a second featurette on this disc that runs for 9 minutes 14 seconds and takes a closer look at the Mr. Brooks, Marshall and Mr., Smith characters, delves into their motivations as we get a better understanding of the characters and their roles in the film. Interestingly enough Moore's character Detective Atwood was left out of this clip as it only focused on the make characters. The third featurette is "On The Set of Mr. Brooks" which runs for 9 minutes 35 seconds and is a behind-the-scenes peek at the production, it looks at the Independent nature of the film and how the filmmaker's retained creative control of the production, plus looks at some of the challenges while we see some footage from the shooting of the film on location. Following that are a series of 6 deleted scenes that can be viewed individually or with a 'play all' option and they include: - "Alternate Opening Title" which runs for 1 minute 19 seconds, this is another version of the opening title sequence which used victim photographs and voice-over stuff that's supposed to represent the voice inside Mr. Brooks' head. - "Atwood Swimming" runs for 39 seconds, her date Chis brings her dress and shoes to her at the pool. - "Atwood's Date" runs for 2 minutes 19 seconds, Chris and Atwood at dinner then they make love, turns out Chris is a gigolo. - "Marshall's Origin" runs for 42 seconds, Mr. Brooks tells Marshall where he was found when Brooks was just 12 years-old. - "Sigy's Clay Analysis" runs for 1 minute 1 second, Atwood hears the results of the substance found in the carpet. - "Broken Cell Phone" runs for 20 seconds, Atwood walks right past the broken cell phone, which Brooks used to call her with. The disc also includes the film's original theatrical trailer which runs for 2 minutes 28 seconds. Also featured are bonus trailers for: - "Live Free or Die Hard" which runs for 2 minutes 13 seconds. - "Rescue Dawn" which runs for 2 minutes 16 seconds. - "Home of the Brave" which runs for 2 minutes 26 seconds. Rounding out the extras is "Cat and Mouse: Inside the Mr. Brooks Case File" an interactive trivia track which is an HD exclusive feature found on this Blu-ray. This features includes pop-up information on serial killers including profiles, tendencies, motivations, trophies, victims, FBI information among other things.
Overall
This film has been reviewed by Shane Roberts. The DVD specifications and extras have been reviewed by Noor Razzak.
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