5. Kevin Costner - Mr. Brooks
There are people out there who haven't cared about anything Kevin Costner's done since Waterworld. Probably because they haven't been able to forgive Kevin Costner
for Waterworld. I'm not one of those people, because I didn't think Waterworld was all that bad. That God-awful Boston accent he tried to push on audiences in Thirteen Days,
that's what I haven't been able to forgive him for. Still, his crimes against north-east regional dialects aside, he's usually okay. He had a slight slip to the bad side when he played an escaped convict in A Perfect World, but that one involved a little boy and there was bonding going on and sympathy stuff happening so it wasn't really that bad. Costner saved his bad stuff for Mr. Brooks. Sadly, his bad stuff was wasted because this film was kind of a mess. Given the title, you would think that the story centered around Costner's character Earl Brooks, a regular Joe, an average guy with a career and family, a respected member of the community with just a teensy little addiction to killing people and marking the scene with the victim's bloody thumbprints, thus earning him the name the Thumbprint Killer (catchy). However, the movie is bogged down with too many other characters, too many plot twists and even too many serial killers. Seriously, there's another sociopath running around called the Hangman Killer, William Hurt stars as Brooks' imaginary partner-in-crime and Dane Cook is in the mix as some a-hole Brooks is mentoring in the art of taking a life. I like Kevin Costner, I really do. I was thrilled with his performance as Jonathan Kent in Man of Steel. The man plays nice guys with the best of them. I just hope that next time he tries to play against type, he finds a better vehicle for his talents, because this film just wasn't it. On the plus side, (
SPOILER!) he does slice Dane Cook's throat open, something a lot of people have been wanting to do for years, so that was nice to see...over and over again because I kept rewinding it. And for that, Mr. Costner, you are hereby forgiven for Waterworld, Thirteen Days and even The Postman too.