Best Movies You Didn't See

Not much did well at the box officer between Pirates 3, Shrek 3, and Spiderman 3. But in the slack of doing less-than-projected, Knocked Up and Ocean's 13 did surprisingly well and all of these movies' quality more-or-less live up to their sales. A few movies didn't live up to their sales, but were very entertaining.

The first of these is Mr. Brooks, given a thumps-up by Richard Roeper as "the guilty pleasure of the summer." Kevin Costner is Mr. Brooks, a successful businessman and father who has an imaginary friend (played by William Hurt) who constantly pressures him to kill for fun. This has risen to the level of an addiction, where Brooks is patient and thorough. Life gets difficult when Brooks is caught in the act by Dane Cook, who threatens to turn Brooks in if he doesn't let Cook tag along for the next killing. On top of this, Brooks' daughter comes home to add to the family drama, tying the two sides of Brooks. Demi Moore plays the detective tracking Brooks, unaware of the identity. However, Demi Moore is not a good cast, and her character is orbital to the more interesting story following Brooks.

The guilty pleasure of the movie is Costner and Hurt's dialogue, not only on killings but on every aspect of Brooks' life. Hurt's character has a few surprising deminisions to him, making him more than just someone for Costner to talk to. The movie makes itself what it is with its twist endings, where you're unsure where everything is going, but it comes together in the end. Usually, I'm not fond of movies that appear to have more than one ending (Lord of the Rings) and consider over-the-top twists to be cop outs for lack of real endings (Saw), but in this case, each ending makes the next more meaningful and the ending is not out of the blue and is well used and well timed.

Well enjoyed, but overshadowed by Shrek 3 and Pirates 3. The studios planned the release for the summer, but late summer would have it compete with Ocean's 13, the target age group for a movie starring Costner, Hurt, and Moore. Hostel 2 and the impending Captivity take away the audiences attracted to Mr. Brooks' dark theme. It is currently numer 9 at the box office, certain to fall off the list next week.