Goofs

In the photos Mr. Brooks receives, in which he is closing the curtains, the bodies behind him are already in their posed positions.

In the scene where the murder victim swings out of the ceiling and hits Demi Moore in the face, blood is streaming out of her broken nose. In subsequent shots, the blood has completely disappeared and she is not bleeding at all.

When Mr Brooks is driving Mr Smith around for the first time, it is raining heavily, yet when they drive past a new car dealership, none of the cars are wet and the coin op car wash across the street is full of people washing their cars.

When Mr. Brooks kills the first couple, the lamp inside the room is turned on. However, after he kills the couple, the room is dark and the lamp is off. The lamp later appears turned on in the photograph. The reflection of the lamp which appears turned off can also be seen right after the couple gets killed.

After the Man of the Year ceremony, Mrs. Brooks takes the ring on her right ring finger off and puts it into her jewelery box, when the camera changes angles, she is seen taking the same ring off again.

When Detective Tracey Atwood's head is stitched it is a visibly huge and nasty head wound which would normally need some bandaging in addition to the stitches. However, in subsequent scenes there are no bandages visible nor is her hair shaved.

A door chain must be installed so the door has to be fully closed before it's possible to disengage the chain; and with the chain engaged, the door must only open wide enough to see who is outside, but does not allow a hand to be pushed through the gap. Yet in more than one residence, these vital rules have been disobeyed.

When police show up at the Brooks house, they say they are with the "Portland Police Department." It's the Portland Police Bureau and always has been.

When Mr. Brooks is reading the paper, the first page contains the story of Meeks's murder-suicide. In the upper section, there is a note about DNA showing Mr. Smith to be the Thumbprint Killer. DNA would take a week to process at very minimum (more likely six to eight weeks), at which point Meeks' story would no longer be breaking news as it is portrayed.

The movie is supposed to be set in Oregon, however the license plates on the cars let you know that it can't possibly be Oregon. Oregon license plates have three letters and then three numbers or vice versa. Not two letters and then a number with two numbers and a letter for the second half of the plate. This, however, is a common device in filmmaking, as film producers do not wish to actual registrations. Films shot in New York and Washington almost always feature cars whose license plates fail to conform to registration patterns.

In the firefight at the hotel with Atwood, Meeks fires his Colt M1911, with its 7-round clip, 23 times without reloading.

When Mr. Brooks kills his first victims, his gun is not fired at all: There's no breach of the plastic bag from the first shot, no movement of the bag from neither the slide moving nor the shell casing being ejected or movement of the slide at all, so the flash from the gun is obviously CGI. And the shell casings would have been so hot they would have melted through the plastic bag and dropped to the floor.

As Mr. Brooks, is reading a paper in a diner, the newspaper - USA Today - has only the headlines and first few lines written in English, the rest is in Latin.

When Mr. Brooks and Marshall are doing research on the computer about Tracy Atwood, it shows her age listed as 38 and her birthday as Nov 11, 1972. However, it shows that she was sued for support by Jesse Viaol on March 20, 2006. At that time she would be 33 years old. During the movie they show her being served with papers for this claim. Her date of birth and age are obviously wrong as the movie would have take place sometime after November 11th, 2010 and before November 11th, 2011. Since they show Jesse and Tracy not only dealing with the issue currently (not for over 4 years) but has Captain Lister telling Tracy she'll be put on desk duty until it's sorted out, they've obviously made an error.

When Detective Carfano and the Portland Detective go to Mr. Brooks' home to question his daughter Jane about the murder at her school at Stanford, you can hear the doorbell being rung before the two detectives even get to the front door of the house.

When Mr. Brooks is talking to Jane in his office, you can see the camera man's arm in the window reflection behind Mr. Brooks' desk.

There is a scene where signs for US highways 79 and 80 are prominently shown. Neither highway is anywhere near Portland, Oregon. (Coincidentally, Portland did at one time contain a segment of Interstate 80N, but it is doubtful that the filmmakers planned this to cover the goof; Interstate 80N was in no way related to US highway 80, and it was re-designated as Interstate 84 many years ago). Both US Route 79 and 80 run through Louisiana, where most of this movie was filmed.