Mr. Brooks

Mr. Brooks is a psychological thriller about a man with an extreme alter ego. The film's plot concerns Earl Brooks (played by Kevin Costner), a well-respected business man with a seemingly perfect life. Brooks has a secret, though: he is a serial murderer with a second personality that manifests as a halucination of a man named Marshall (played by William Hurt). After years of living as a normal person, Marshall returns to Brooks' life and urges him to commit more murders. Brooks is photographed in the act of a murder and is blackmailed, but the requests of the blackmailer played by Dane Cook are stranger and more disturbing that even Brooks could have imagined.

Though Mr. Brooks received mixed and lukewarm critical reviews, which often complained about unnecessary plot twists, it was more well liked by the general public than many of Kevin Costner's then-recent films. Costner had developed something of a reputation for making either high-concept, poorly-executed films such as The Postman and Waterworld, or forgetable romantic movies. Though Mr. Brooks is considered by many to be a solid, engaging movie, many were suprised by the simple fact that Costner had broken his streak of below-par films.