An action romantic-comedy starring the infinitely talented and lovable Ke Huy Quan seems the perfect showcase for the Oscar-winning actor and friendliest man in Hollywood, right? Sadly, Love Hurts is hampered by a deeply dumb script that seems like it was written by a bunch of teenage boys watching several bad action movies while pulling an energy drink-fuelled all-nighter.
Poorly written characters—including two inauthentic and cringe-inducing romances—excessive stylized violence, and bewildered plotting leave even the actors grasping desperately for believability and consistent tonality. The film just about manages to provoke some incredulous and derisive laughs at its most ridiculous moments—probably not the kind of audience guffaws that the script writers were going for.
Quan plays Marvin Gable (yes, half the time, it sounds like people are saying “Marvin Gaye”), a cheery and successful realtor who genuinely adores his job, his dissatisfied assistant Ashley (Lio Tipton), and his cowboy hat-wearing mentor/boss Cliff (Sean Astin). On Valentine’s Day, Marvin’s past as a hitman for his crime lord brother Alvin (Daniel Wu), nicknamed “Knuckles” comes back in the form of a holiday card from Rose (Ariana DeBose). Rose used to work for Knuckles but was set up by his right-hand man Renny (Cam Gigandet) and managed to escape the dangerous criminal sphere with Marvin’s help. Immediately after receiving this Valentine, multiple violent henchmen start to hunt down, beat up, and interrogate Marvin in hopes of finding and/or killing Rose.
While the premise seems straightforward enough, each character is drawn up like a cartoon character from a completely different film. One hitman, The Raven (Mustafa Shakir), writes poetry and his outfit conceals hundreds of knives and feathered darts. This quirk becomes especially strange when the action in the film later includes automatic firearms—The Raven ends up literally bringing a knife to a gunfight, and it’s truly a ludicrous sight.
Worse still is the contrived romance this minor character strikes up with Ashley. It’s so out of left field and unrealistic that it drew the most laughs from the audience out of sheer wackiness and audaciously lazy, bad writing. Half the ridiculousness factor comes from how poorly Marvin’s assistant character is written. It’s never clear why Ashley hates her job or hates Valentine’s Day, and none of her decisions at any point in the film make any kind of sense, including spending time with The Raven.
Another romance that feels shoehorned in is the one between Marvin and Rose. It doesn’t help that the actors have zero chemistry, and DeBose is nearly 20 years younger than Quan. (Haven’t we moved past this age-gap problem yet, Hollywood?) A duo of squabbling hitmen adds a side plot of one of them trying to get back together with his wife while the other rolls his eyes at his partner’s attempts at romance. The dynamic goes nowhere, and the two characters instantly drain the energy of the film whenever they show up on-screen. In general, all the Valentine-themed romance beats prove extremely disjointed and seem to have been shoved in by uncaring studio heads or male writers who have never encountered real women before.
Some more famous faces make welcome appearances—only for their longstanding goodwill to be quickly squandered by the film. Rhys Darby and Sean Astin portray minor characters who receive a couple of gross and gory moments each, but it feels a shame to treat their screen time so flippantly. And Drew Scott—a Property Brother!—also makes a bizarre appearance as a rival realtor with a black belt. Too many characters with unclear or convoluted motivations make the lean 83-minute runtime feel like a drag.
But let’s end with the good stuff: there’s no denying Quan and Wu’s serious martial arts chops in Love Hurts’ many action scenes. Surprisingly, Quan and Wu are both already in their fifties(!), but they manage to outshine everyone else with their stunt choreography. Quan already wowed audiences with his prowess in Everything Everywhere All At Once, but he gets to do even more here. Fans of EEAAO will also enjoy his besuited and badass assassin moments in this film, à la John Wick, and a Knuckles scene involving a bubble tea straw being used as a lethal weapon feels especially fun and fresh.
Ultimately, however, Love Hurts is made by and for immature viewers who will enjoy the splashy action and heavy swearing, and don’t mind the leaden script.
