“The hunger has returned.”

“It never really left.”

So reads the title card introducing audiences to the seriously twisted and perverse psychological thriller Mr. Brooks. Not your typical summer popcorn feature, this new film from director and co-writer Bruce A. Evans (Kuffs) isn’t for the faint of heart. It is a descent straight into the heart of ultimate darkness, a picture where the serial killer is the good guy and those trying to stop him are the bad. Needless to say, a lot of people are really going to hate this one with a passion.

Thankfully I am not one of them. While far from perfect, by and large I found myself mesmerized. Evans and Raynold Gideon’s (one-time Oscar-nominees for Stand by Me) screenplay is literate and involving, its thought provoking narrative structure constantly keeping me on the very tip of my toes. Sure it is grotesque, the main character is a serial killer after all, but it is also different, and in a summer where the only thing unusual is seeing a “2” instead of a “3” after a title that’s no small feat indeed.

Earl Brooks (Kevin Costner) is the Portland Chamber of Commerce Man of the Year. The successful and admired box maker boasts a loving wife, Emma (Marg Helgenberger), and a devoted daughter, Jane (Danielle Panabaker). He is the penultimate philanthropist and businessman, and if you are lucky enough to know him you’d probably go home at night thanking the stars you’re blessed to call him friend.

But Mr. Brooks has another side to his personality, a persona which schizophrenically manifests itself in the form of the coldly sarcastic and ghoulishly exuberant Marshall (William Hurt). After a two year absence, this ghost has returned to torment Earl, badgering him to do things he loves but also knows put his wife and child in serious jeopardy. Maybe one more won’t hurt, however, just one more murder and the pain will go away making Mr. Brooks finally put his bloody compulsion behind him once and for all.

If only it were that easy. It’s one thing to have driven Portland detective Tracy Atwood (Demi Moore) trying to follow his frustrating lack of clues, quite another to have gained a geeky admirer in the form of a grinning fool calling himself Mr. Smith (Dane Cook). Making matters even worse Jane has just returned from college carrying a secret of her own, the truth more upsetting to Mr. Brooks than almost any other the conscience-riddled psychopath feels after each and every murder.

To say more would spoil the wickedly clever and darkly disturbing fun. Let’s just this is one story with more twists and turns than a baseball stadium pretzel. Evans and Gideon take things in startlingly intricate directions, little of the film either obvious or familiar making for a thriller almost impossible to take your eyes off of.

That said, the subject matter decidedly tasteless at times. The amoral center of the picture is coal-black, the bleak way it looks at both people and life enough to make even the most masochistic viewer squirm in their theater seat (if only just a little bit). This film is dark with a capitol “D,” and for those looking for sunny certainties and morality-fueled happy endings this is certainly not the place to find them.

For my part, I can’t say I’m all that comfortable with the almost constant nihilism, either. It’s not exactly easy to take, and when nearly every character ends up revealing themselves to be almost as messed-up and sadistic as the Hannibal Lecter-like main character part of me just wanted to stand up and scream. It’s almost too much (Cook’s Mr. Smith particularly annoying and unbelievable at times), and while I admired much of this film I still can’t help but silently shudder at just how sick and disgusting large parts of it really is.

In spite of this fact, or maybe because of it, I could not stop watching Mr. Brooks unfold. Portions are jus jaw-dropping, Evans directing with such assurance and control suspense seems to permeate virtually every pore of the picture. One ill-conceived (and unintentionally funny) gun fight aside, the director does a masterful job, the slowly building fear enough to send constant beads of cascading perspiration up and down my spine.

The cast is, by and large, excellent. Hurt makes delicious use of his limited screen time, while young Panabaker deftly holds her own against her more accomplished co-stars. For Moore, Detective Atwood is the best role she’s had in years, the film a reminder of the talent she once displayed once upon a time. Only Helgenberger is completely wasted, the marvelously talented C.S.I. star stranded with a thankless role so one dimensional and nondescript she might as well not even be in the movie in the first place.

But this is Costner’s film and, without question, he is magnificent. Always an actor easy to underrate and make fun of (Waterworld, The Postman and Dragonfly will do that to you), he’s so good in this I almost didn’t believe it was him. Costner dives right into the very heart of sadistic darkness, painting such a complex portrait of monstrous evil I was completely taken aback. Yet there is also a perverse humanity to the man that’s staggering, and by the time things ran their wicked course I almost felt dirty and ashamed to discover I was practically rooting for the guy to get away.

And that, right there, is the genius and horror and what Evans has accomplished. Earl Brooks isn’t killing for the greater good like the character in Showtime’s Dexter, he’s doing it because he is addicted to murder and because he takes pleasure in the act. Yet the filmmakers get audiences to root for him all the same, turning us all into unintentional accomplices making Mr. Brooks a truly killer thriller impossible to forget.

Film Rating:  êêê  (out of 4)