Mr. Brooks.

Kevin Costner being a versatile actor as we know him to be makes his new movie look like a child’s play for other actors. Mr. Brooks is about an individual who is a prominent businessman but also has split personality. Now this scenario really gave me a tingle when I read the synopsis behind a DVD cover. I never imagined Costner as a psycho or a being a cold blooded murderer. There was something in the movie that really made him fit into that character. Costner plays Mr. Brooks,a business man who suppresses his split personality for two years until it entices him to do something he vowed not to. His gleefully sadistic alter ego is played by William Hurt, he entices Brooks to do the killing after two years.
After killing Brooks had a habit of getting rid of evidence by burning and cleaning the house of any evidence of his presence. He sets the bodies of his victims in a way that portrays the symbol of love. Also he makes a thumb print using one of the victims thumb on a visible area which got him the name the thumb print killer. Chasing the thumbprint killer is Portland detective Tracy Atwood played by Demi Moore. Atwood is in a personal crisis in this movie, fighting the case of a divorce settlement, one of her captured convicts has escaped and is looking for her and then there is a killer on the loose in Portland.
This movie revolves around three characters; the third is an eye witness that captures the double homicide of the thumb print killer after his two year break. He is a photographer that resides in the opposite building of Brooks’ victims. Atwood knows that the photographer has witnessed the crime but he denies it, but he takes the photos of Brook’s killings to him to do a bargain. The actors are superb in the movie, its almost like the actors were kept in mind when the script of this movie was written. Personall I would rate this movie an 8 out of 10. This movie reminded me of the ’Silence of the Lambs’ series, a serial killer and a cop bent on catching him, but ‘Mr. Brooks’ is no where near the excellence of ‘Silence of the Lambs’.

Rouge: Assassin/War

I remember watching the trailer for this movie on Apples site and the next thing I know a friend told me that a movie with Jet Li and Jason Statham is in theatres and its called Rouge: Assassin. I thought what the hell why did Lions Gate release one movie with two titles? I had been waiting for sometime now for these two to team up again after “The One”. Rouge: Assassin starts with two cops who are very good a friend, one of them is assassinated and the other wants vengeance for his partner’s death. As you might have guess (from the trailers) that Statham is the cop who wants vengeance. Li on the other hand is the assassin (duh!) who eliminates the people he is hired to kill in any way he chooses.
Li was given a role similar to the one in “Lethal Weapon 4” less talk, more fight kind of character. His fight sequence in the end (battling the Asians) was very exciting (one of them gets hit by a vehicles tyre rim). Statham on the other hand was given a role identical to his character in “The One”, a cop chasing his partner’s killer. This did seem boring because the same scenario was being repeated with the same actors. The twist they tried to incorporate in the script was that the cop doesn’t see the assassin until half way though the movie. Also they integrated the feud between the Yakuza and the Triads into the script to maybe life the storyline or fill in the running time of the movie. (Trust me there wouldn’t have been a story without it). The rest of the characters were ok because I knew only two of them and one of their names.
This movie has it all the fights, chase sequence, Triads fighting Yakuza, and the cop and killer scenario. The story has a twist in the end which makes the movie pathetic. Even though we get to see little of Statham and Li fighting the crap out of themselves. There was something that lacked in the movie; I just can not put my finger to it, maybe it was the storyline that sucked towards the end. Rouge: Assassin is just a once watch or you can skip it and if you liked “The One” you can watch that again.