Director: Jonathan Eusebio
Writers: Matthew Murray, Josh Stoddard, Luke Passmore
Stars: Ke Huy Quan, Ariana DeBose, Mustafa Shakir, Marshawn Lynch
Synopsis: A hitman-turned-realtor is forced to confront his past.
I was excited for Love Hurts. I was ready to sit back and bask in the glow of the Ke Huy Quan Renaissance. The Academy Award winner from Everything Everywhere All at Once, best known to many as Short Round from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, has experienced a career resurgence in recent years. He’s charismatic, possesses talent far beyond his legendary childhood roles, and, in an industry where it’s increasingly rare, is known as one of the genuinely good guys in Hollywood.
Combined with the fact that Love Hurts comes from the producers of Nobody, the team that turned Bob Odenkirk into an action star, my excitement was through the roof. Then, add in one of the greatest reunions since Robert De Niro and Al Pacino shared coffee in Heat: Goonies alum Sean Astin embracing Ke Huy Quan in a heartfelt hug, delivering a dose of ’80s nostalgia we didn’t even know we needed. Oh yes, Love Hurts is poised to give any ’80s or ’90s kid the feels they’ve been missing.
However, as the film progresses, it becomes apparent that Love Hurts may be an obedience experiment comparable to Milgram. The action feels labored, the acting is stiff, and the characters are thinner than one of those Fatheads your kid slaps on their bedroom wall. The humor barely registers, and the dialogue is cringe-worthy at best. And let’s not forget—Love Hurts boasts the oddest romantic pairing since Lyle Lovett and Julia Roberts (or Pete Davidson and [insert name here]).
Yet, the screening I attended had people howling at the oddest moments, making me wonder if the crowd was being held against their will and laughing out of sheer desperation. I even made a note to Google it later—this might be the first documented case of boredom-induced hysteria. Apparently, I’m immune.
The story follows Marvin Gable (Quan), who has just been named Real Estate Agent of the Year by his best friend, Cliff (Astin). Marvin loves his job, taking pride in finding the perfect home for every person, couple, or family. He bakes cookies for his coworkers, and everyone adores him—including his morbidly eccentric assistant (Crazy Love’s Lio Tipton), who remains loyally by his side. However, things take a sudden turn when a trained assassin known as the Raven (Mustafa Shakir) shows up at his office.
Why would such a beloved figure have such a violent enemy? Because Marvin is an ex-assassin himself—hiding in plain sight (with his face plastered all over town on real estate ads, no less) from his mobster brother, Knuckles (played by Quan’s American Born Chinese co-star Daniel Wu). Knuckles has just discovered that Marvin never completed his final assignment: murdering a coworker, Rose (Kraven’s Ariana DeBose—who, frankly, requires a serious career intervention), after she stole millions from Knuckles years ago.
Thankfully, director Jonathan Eusebio’s film clocks in at a merciful 83 minutes, which explains why it’s missing a second act. The movie is filled with repetitive nonsense and poorly staged action sequences that look more like slow, choreographed practice sessions that want to be Nobody or something from Chad Stahelski. The movie has weird ambitions, wanting to show action inside a microwave or a refrigerator, where you can hear punches being thrownbehind closed doors. The sequences are disengaging tired, and are nothing but filler.
Then, there’s the elephant in the room: we’re supposed to believe in the romance between Quan and DeBose. I’m all for poking fun at past decades of pairing a weathered star with a 20-something woman (Entrapment, Six Days, Seven Nights, etc.), but the film takes the pairing seriously, and they have little to no chemistry. The film only works when Tipton and Shakir’s characters take a liking to each other, highlighting the film’s underlying problem.
I can practically guarantee that the film started as a very dark comedy, but to sell the script, Love Hurts went through dozens of rewrites (the script is credited to three writers: Matthew Murray, Josh Stoddard, and Luke Passmore). Instead, we get scenes where Marshawn Lynch and André Eriksen unload machine gun fire into a couch, which somehow manages to stop all the bullets from hitting Quan. Then, for no apparent reason, they shoot above the couch for several minutes into a wall, even though the target is only five feet away and still lying on the ground, behind the feather-filled sofa.
I’m not sure who Love Hurts was made for: fans of diabetes-inducing boba tea, people who want to see the Property Brothers end their reign of terror on HGTV, or see DeBose’s career go up in flames, but after watching it, I can only assume love is an illusion and created by the good people at Hallmark and the corporation are the ones testing our resolve.
Grade: D-
You can watch Love Hurts only in theaters on February 7th!
