Mr Brooks

Remove the acidic tone and droll metaphorical layering from ‘American Psycho’ and you’ll end up with something like the infuriatingly mediocre ‘Mr Brooks’, a dark tale about a family man (Kevin Costner) who receives a thrill from murdering people in cold blood at the behest of his demented alter-ego Marshall (William Hurt). There are tiny fragments of interesting ideas nestled among the pseudo-Freudian clutter, most notably Mr Brooks’s amusing paternal despair at the idea that his so-called ‘evil gene’ may have been passed on to his teenage daughter. And Costner laps up the chance to play a sicko, adding a creepy charm to his non-emoting everyman act. But while the film carries some serious heft as a hulking slab of manna from ’90s nostalgist heaven (Demi Moore also stars), this wannabe highbrow horror-thriller is a graceless, unfocused piece of work with a central narrative as tonally schizophrenic and wayward as its lead.