This movie is bad. The acting... eh, passable. I guess. It's hard to tell given the ghastly characters the actors were given to animate. The main character is the only one who can be called 3 dimensional, and that's only because his id hangs out in the backseat filling us in. Cheaters.
The main character is the only one with half a brain. The writer lets you know repeatedly that he's exceptionally brilliant. The usual cat-and-mouse that is the fun part of a murder mystery is completely absent. The detective has no amazing insights. She has a hunch. Yes, that's the brilliant sleuthing with which the writer has decided will entertain us. The only thing we know about the detective is that she's going through an idiotic divorce, where we're supposed to feel sorry for her for having to give up 1/60th of her networth. That's it. Oh. And there's a vapid "revelation" at the end about her life's motivations.
Death is never realistic. None of the victims are made to be remotely sympathetic or even human except in the sense of being human-shaped. They're just plot points. The only exceptions are a couple of people we've met just long enough to establish them as Scummy Enough To Kill.
In the end there is STILL no one likable. What's more nothing is resolved. In the meantime you've watched several gratuitous deaths and a death scene reminiscent of Paul Reubens's in the original Buffy movie.
Whoever wrote this must have been some 22 year old guy wishing he could try out serial killing for a living. And that was the extent of his writing expertise. He (and I assume it's a "he") has no experience with grey areas, and no experience with human motivations and complexities that make watching thrillers entertaining.
Worst of all, he has no idea of the horror that is murder. Clearly to this writer it's an abstract idea that moves the plot along and provides some gore with which to wash it down. If you're going to do gore, go over the top and make it cartoonish, a la Sin City or any Tarantino. Then we can enjoy it. Mr. Brooks, however fails as a cartoon, and fails as a horror film. That just leaves us with thriller, and this amount of context-less blood is out of place. Chandler described Hammet as "having taken murder out of the drawing room and dumped it in the alley where it belonged". If this movie is any indication, significant backsliding has taken place.
The main character is the only one with half a brain. The writer lets you know repeatedly that he's exceptionally brilliant. The usual cat-and-mouse that is the fun part of a murder mystery is completely absent. The detective has no amazing insights. She has a hunch. Yes, that's the brilliant sleuthing with which the writer has decided will entertain us. The only thing we know about the detective is that she's going through an idiotic divorce, where we're supposed to feel sorry for her for having to give up 1/60th of her networth. That's it. Oh. And there's a vapid "revelation" at the end about her life's motivations.
Death is never realistic. None of the victims are made to be remotely sympathetic or even human except in the sense of being human-shaped. They're just plot points. The only exceptions are a couple of people we've met just long enough to establish them as Scummy Enough To Kill.
In the end there is STILL no one likable. What's more nothing is resolved. In the meantime you've watched several gratuitous deaths and a death scene reminiscent of Paul Reubens's in the original Buffy movie.
Whoever wrote this must have been some 22 year old guy wishing he could try out serial killing for a living. And that was the extent of his writing expertise. He (and I assume it's a "he") has no experience with grey areas, and no experience with human motivations and complexities that make watching thrillers entertaining.
Worst of all, he has no idea of the horror that is murder. Clearly to this writer it's an abstract idea that moves the plot along and provides some gore with which to wash it down. If you're going to do gore, go over the top and make it cartoonish, a la Sin City or any Tarantino. Then we can enjoy it. Mr. Brooks, however fails as a cartoon, and fails as a horror film. That just leaves us with thriller, and this amount of context-less blood is out of place. Chandler described Hammet as "having taken murder out of the drawing room and dumped it in the alley where it belonged". If this movie is any indication, significant backsliding has taken place.