The Double Life of Kevin Coster Photo by Ben Glass © 2007 Element Funding, LLC.

PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 5/31/07)

Earl Brooks is a man divided. On the outside, he clings desperately to the notion that he's a loving father, a successful businessman, and a pillar of his community. Underneath, however, his true self is revealed to be a compulsive and methodical serial killer. Similarly, the movie Mr. Brooks wants very badly for you to think of it as a smart, complex, psychological thriller; however, it only barely masks its inner mindless, lurid, and infuriating schlock. Even worse, Mr. Brooks occasionally gives you glimpses of a much better movie.

Brooks (Costner) has managed for years to maintain his dual identity through careful planning, precise execution, and meticulous cleanup. In between, he makes vain efforts to curb his dark impulses, while arguing with the morally-bankrupt alter ego that lives in his head, Marshall (Hurt). The scenes between Costner and Hurt are pure black comedy, and suggest that the movie would have worked as a chilling character study. Hurt, especially, seems to delight in playing Brooks' evil Jiminy Cricket, and audiences will sorely miss his dark sense of playfulness once it's pushed aside in favor of four or five story threads that must fight it out in some kind of plot-subplot death match. This is when the movie goes to hell. Enter the wildly out-of-place Cook as some kind of serial killer groupie and Moore as a cookie-cutter "edgy" cop tracking one serial killer while being trailed by another (yeah, we know). Not content to be an adult Fight Club, Mr. Brooks now feels the need to be Seven, as well.

Being able to outthink the audience is the key to a psychological thriller, but we're crying "foul" here because Mr. Brooks has pulled a fast one and decided not to think at all. Characters act in ways no rational human being would ever act, police procedure is so wildly disregarded that even someone who's only watched a handful of Law & Order episodes can pick apart the entire story, and "twists" are replaced by thudding coincidence. The entire "Brooks' daughter" subplot, especially, is so insultingly ludicrous that it actually has the audacity to cap off with a — wait for it — dream sequence.

We'd really like to crawl into William Hurt's head and experience whatever movie he thought he was making.

— Eric Alt