MR. BROOKS [R]
In the 1985 sci-fi movie Max Headroom, 3-second time-compressed commercials called “blipverts,” meant to discourage the future’s TV viewers from channel surfing, inadvertently caused some viewers’ heads to explode. Take an extra stack of napkins into this darkly comic thriller starring Kevin Costner as a mild-mannered killer, and periodically check to make sure your brain is not bleeding out your ears. In one of the most plot-heavy movies of all time, long-dormant writer-director Bruce A. Evans, whose career high points were penning Starman (1984) and Stand By Me (1986), piles on plot points at a furious pace. Were the movie not so well acted by Costner, evil alter ego William Hurt, Demi Moore and Marg Helgenberger (”CSI”), then Evans’ overwritten affair would collapse under its own weight. –Robert Newton