“Scary, was it?” a theater employee asked me as I left the screening of this new film starring Kevin Costner as a respectable Portland citizen and family man who is also a notorious serial killer. It’s not, but for the most part it wasn’t trying to be terribly scary. If there’s nothing else to be said for Mr. Brooks, it is at least a film made for adults about adults exploring adult concerns. As we connect with Earl Brooks, he has given in to what he refers to as his “addiction to killing” for the first time in some years. The demon in his head that drives him is manifested in the person of William Hurt, who assures him that he deserves a “reward” and reminds him of how much he enjoys the thrill of killing random strangers and getting away with it. But this time they don’t quite get away with it: They have been photographed by a voyeur (comedian Dane Cook in a more or less straight role). “Mr. Smith” doesn’t want to blackmail him, though, he wants lessons in the art of murder. At the same time, Brooks is being stalked by Detective Atwood (a miscast Demi Moore), a cop driven to obsession over the case as a release for frustration over a difficult divorce. And then there’s Brooks’ daughter, who has just dropped out of college because…well, you get the idea. Watching Mr. Brooks, I guessed that it was based on a novel, one of those crime thrillers with a preposterously bleak view of human nature in which serial killers populate the planet like tribbles. It isn’t. It’s an original screenplay by Bruce Evans and Raynold Gideon, better known for family fare like Stand By Me (which Evans also directed). It’s filmed with a nice neo-noir sheen and an unsettling sound design that should appeal to viewers who liked Fracture. The odd chemistry between Costner and Hurt is also fun to watch, though I would have hoped that Hurt, who in middle age has become an avid over-actor, had been given some juicier dialogue. But Mr. Brooks is so overstuffed that it keeps disappointing us by following new threads instead of playing out the earlier ones. It’s a diverting enough two hours that fades from memory soon after.

It would take up more than the space allotted to mention even the most noteworthy directors and actors on view in this collection of 19 short films set in Paris, all of course having to do with love. Happily few of them are predictable, and while many find the filmmakers revisiting earlier works, for five minutes that’s not the worst thing in the world, a little lagniappe between features. So what if Olivier Assayas’ segment seems borrowed equally from his Irma Vep and Clean—this time his actress is Maggie Gyllenhaal, and that’s enough reason to watch. The Coen Brothers contribute a bit in a Paris subway station that shows what a wonderful silent comedian Steve Buscemi would have been. The range of love is wide, from the love of an immigrant mother for the infant she works to support (Catalina Sandino Moreno in a film by Central Station’s Walter Salles) to that of an aging couple discussing their divorce (Ben Gazarra and Gena Rowlands showing what they learned from all those years working with John Cassavetes). Two other immigrants are at the center of perhaps the most touching film, directed by the unknown-to-me Olivier Schmitz, though the best overall segment is certainly Alexander Payne’s closer, narrated in the sweetly atrocious accent of a middle-aged American woman who discovers the real Paris on a lonely vacation there. (You can also spot Payne playing Oscar Wilde helping smooth the course of young love from his grave in Wes Craven’s atypical short.) Among the directors whose names you may not recognize are Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham), Isabelle Coixet (My Life Without Me), and Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville); as for the cast, well, it’s nicer to be surprised, isn’t it? And if a few of the films seem tedious or minor, don’t worry—they’re over with soon enough.