The film is shot/directed and written well.....as long as the self-indulgences of the writers' comments in the Special Features interviews aren't swallowed. It is a nitpicking on my part, but here goes: the writers refer to Mr. Brooks' being "desperate" in dealing with his problem....eh, not quite. Where there is a fascinating view into the facets of his struggle, "desperate" is not an adjective I would use with confidence...that conjures up a greater complex approach to his crimes and the "voice" and so forth, i.e. what Hurt's character says to him at the A.A. meeting regarding Brooks' dishonesty or even William Hurt's comment in his interview regarding Brooks' strategy of attending an A.A. meeting to deal with his psychopathology as being "absurd". I mean, let's be real here!
IF the writers' opinion of "desperation" were infused within the storyline as to sell us on a greater compassion towards Mr. Brooks with no accompanied complexities of that "desperation", then I would level a low rating. The film does not do that. It depicts the twisted/despicable acts on its face without minimizing his darkness or simplistically converting him to the light. So, my reference to the writers is in the end....nitpicky. I recommend the film.
Mr. Brooks - T. Seel - everywhere, USA
This movie was well written it was very entertaining and I enjoyed watching it. It was worth my purchase.
Bloodspeak - Strawgold - Wyoming
His name was Mr. Brooks, not Mr. Hyde - but you get the idea. In the supporting role, William Hurt sets aside his romantic image and is very effective as the conniving, master-of-detail alter ego who directs Mr. Brooks from the "back seat" of his mind.
Suspenseful, well written, well bloodied (a must, of course) (-) and very well done overall if you're into murder mysteries - and with 186 reviews explaining it, you don't need a long one from me - but I did wish to rate it for "posterity".
I enjoyed every gory minute of it. Another one that might be equally recommended along these same lines is "Matchpoint" with Scarlett Johansson.
To What End? Other Than To Reflect Who We Are and What We've Become. - Yasha Banana -
Is the purpose of this movie to "enlighten" the audience?
No.
Is the purpose of this movie to help us understand a social, political or personal situation?
No.
Is the purpose of this movie to challenge a thought, an institution, a way of life?
No.
The sole purpose of this movie is to entertain.
It entertains the audience by taking a serious subject, a gory, violent, *brutal* subject, the life of a serial killer, and does so in nothing more than a tittalating, voyeuristic way.
It's not enough in movies today for two or three million dollars be be robbed from a banl. Now it has to be 50 or 100 or 800 billion dollars.
It's not enough in movies today to blow up a building. Now it has to be the whole block, or if not the whole block the whole town.
It's not enough in movies today for someone to be shot or stabbed, they have to be shot or stabbed in the most gory, graphic way possible. And then the photos of the dead, mangled bodies have to be shown to the audience slowly and in lingering close-ups.
What does all this say about us as a culture?
Specifically, whaty does it say that where once the United States led the world in manufacturing, today the only two things the US exports are fast food and Hollywood movies -- the more violent, the more juvenile, the more meaningless the better.
It's not just that Hollywood today makes gory, violent, pointless movies. It's that they *also* assiduously avoid making movies about real people in real life situations.
The fact that over the past 40 years the living standards of people in the United States have declined *dramatically* doesn't find its way into the dramas created by mainstream filmmaking. Instead they go looking for dramas elsewhere. As for example in the lives of serial killers. Who, the the case fo "Mister Brooks" also happen to be loving fathers and devoted husbands.
Id this wasn't so pathetically idiotic it would be laughable.
By contrast, back in the 1930 and 1940s, Hollywood had writers and directors who posed first-order challenges to the stauts quo. While, "back in the day" the left-leaning writers and directors who saw their work come to the screen didn't advocate overthrowing the capitalist system, they were part of a broad-based movement that resulted in the enactment of major social reforms all throughout the 1930s and 40s.
Presently, the political climate amongst mainstream filmmakers is either reactionary (e.g., nonsense "action movies" such as "Mr. Brooks," along with the usual Bruce Willis/Slylvester Stallone crap) or else are work of "soft-left liberals" that far from promoting social change n fact hold back, given their lack of commitment, the struggles of workingclass activists to effect any significant changes to the status quo.
Many of the people who made movies in the 30s and 40s -- along with the audiences who viewed their movies -- were greatly influenced by not just working class struggles but, more generally, by the growing influence of the socialist and revolutionary movements in the early 20th century. Whereas today mainstream filmmakers, insulated as they are from the felt lives of millions of people, have virtually no contact (and certainly no great concern) for the livesa lived by the people in their audiences.
In short, none of what comes out of today's mainstream filmmaking is in any way subversive. Nothing challenges the status quo. Nothing rocks the boat. Insulated, rich and self-satisfied, today's filmmakers have no interest whatsoever in raising the consciousness of the general public.
In the past 40 years, the financial domination of big business and Wall Street have coincided with a staggering growth of social inequality and a dramatic decline in the living standards of workingclass Americans. And yet nowhere in mainstream media is there even a *hint* that such an anti-democratic political and economic domination exists!
Instead we get movies about serial killers ... buildings exploding ... billions of dollars robbed from banks ... cute, ditzy employees in cute albeit unrealistic economic situations ... and befuddled couples endlessly trying to figure out how to "relate" to each other (with, if all else fails, Oprah waiting in the wings to straigthen them all out.)
Modern days mainstream movies are in no way related to or sympathetic with the plight of working class people -- whereas back in the 20s and 30s and 40s, even amongst mainstream filmmakers, there was a sympathy toward socialist and even revolutionary ideas. For example when Mister Smith went to Washington, even its right-wing director Frank Capra questioned, via the film, whether democracy can co-exist with political and financial injustice.
By contrast, nowwhere today are there films coming out of mainstream Hollywood today that defend the notion of democracy against economic inequality, financial domination by the ruling elite or (get this!) honesty in government.
Not even from the soft left in Hollywood.
Instead we get people like the people who made "Mr. Brooks" telling us in the DVD commentary -- and, mind you, in the most *profound* tones of voice! -- how fulfilling it was to make this movie, how much they "put into it," how simply *marvelous* it was working with such *marvelous* people!
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