r. Brooks is a modern-day Jekyll and Hyde tale that spins the twisted saga of eponymous psychopath Mr. Brooks (Kevin Costner), a Portland businessman who runs a Fortune 500 company. He has an Architectural Digest house, a loving wife (Marg Helgenberger) and a troubled teen daughter (Danielle Panabaker). He's also likes killing people. It gives him a rush.

He is fighting a voice in his head named Marshall (William Hurt, in a delicious turn) who prods Brooks to keep murdering innocents for fun. Although both characters take place in Earl's mind, director Bruce A. Evans has dramatized Earl and Marshall by letting the dialogue play out by each of them.

Add to the mix is the neighbour (Dane Cook), who has just witnessed the latest killing, and now he's approached Brooks with photographic evidence and a strange kind of blackmail scheme.

Costner is great here as the two-sided monster: one, a quintessential bland all-American boy who has a picture-book family life; Hurt acts out the killer's sick inner child that is secretly addicted to committing gratuitous murders. The bland Mr. Earl Brooks is a common man with ordinary family problems, and Costner's smooth, unassuming exterior fits neatly with the character that has so much going on beneath the surface.

Detective Atwood (Demi Moore) has been trailing after the man - also known to the cops as the Thumbprint Killer - for years, but she has a few messy things going on in her life too: as the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, she is in the middle of a messy divorce from her younger husband (Jason Lewis). And to cap off her troubles, yet another notorious serial killer she earlier captured (Matt Schulze) has broken out of jail and is intent on killing her.

As the killers and would-be killers are on the loose, we are overburdened with even more plot elements; Earl's daughter Jane (Danielle Panabaker), suddenly returns home from college. Gradually, her secrets are revealed and they indicate what her father seems to fear the worst: His homicidal impulses are indeed hereditary.

Costner and Hurt are both very good. Moore is unimpressive as a character that just isn't believable. This Bull Durham of serial killers marks the return of veteran writing team Bruce A. Evans and Raynold Gideon to writing/directing duties a full 15 years since their last film, the Christian Slater vehicle "Kuffs".