'Love Hurts' Review: Ke Huy Quan Deserves a Better Star Vehicle Than This
With every movie out of David Lietch's stuntman-to-director pipeline production studio 87North, we're getting fewer skilled action filmmakers and more copies of Lietch equipped with a John Wick-with-a-twist premise. Love Hurts, Fall Guy stunt coordinator Jonathan Eusebio’s directorial debut, features Everything Everywhere All at Once Oscar-winner Ke Huy Quan in a leading action vehicle about a — sigh — a former hitman returning to the workforce to face his past. Fortunately, Love Hurts embraces its familiar premise and opts for a more whimsical approach, demonstrating that Ke Huy Quan is a star. A star deserving of a better vehicle than this.
Image copyright (©) Courtesy of Universal Pictures
MPA Rating: R (Strong/bloody violence and language throughout.)
Runtime: 1 Hr and 23 Minutes
Production Companies: 87North Productions
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Director: Jonathan Eusebio
Writers: Matthew Murray, Josh Stoddard, Luke Passmore
Cast: Ke Huy Quan, Ariana DeBose, Daniel Wu, Marshawn Lynch, Mustafa Shakir, Lio Tipton, Rhys Darby, André Eriksen, Sean Astin
Release Date: February 7, 2024
Former hitman Marvin Gable (Ke Huy Quan) lives comfortably as a renowned Wisconsin realtor. Right on the heels of Valentine's Day, Marvin's past comes back to haunt him when Rose (Ariana DeBose), the femme fatale that his crime-lord brother Knuckles (Daniel Wu) had ordered him to kill, suddenly reappears. Every hitman comes out of the woodwork to find him, immediately disrupting his life. Now it’s up to Marvin to confront his past, face his brother, and hopefully profess his love to Rose.
I’m Getting Tired of 87North Action
The David Leitch school of action filmmaking, with its slick and polished hand-to-hand combat sequences that felt so fresh in the mid-2010s, is finally on its last leg. While Lietch himself has been gradually improving his skills, adding depth to his familiar style in Fall Guy, Jonathan Eusebio, who is a competent coordinator, directs like Leitch in his earlier days. Everything is in focus and the camera movement lacks kinetic speed as the choreography slavishly caters to Ke's skill set.Everyone is on his rhythm, resulting in pedestrian action that lacks weight. Sometimes it's impressive, especially towards the latter half, but it's never as engaging as it should be.
Valentine’s Nay
I like a good age-gap romance… when there is chemistry. Ke Huy Quan and Ariana DeBose simply don't have that romantic spark that Love Hurts needs to function as a Valentine's Day themed affair. Besides it feeling so bizarre to see Quan go from Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All At Once to Debose, who is the same age as the actress who plays Quan and Yeoh’s onscreen daughter, neither Marvin nor Rose are convincing as romantic interests from a writing standpoint. Their voiceover monologues are evidence of this: Marvin goes, "I love her," and she is like, "aw, he's cute," as if he were a little lost puppy. DeBose's fierceness and fatale persona while rocking a cheetah print coat and Quan's lovable upbeat attitude might make for a fun foil in a buddy comedy, but not a romantic one. Marvin and Rose's romance is so unpersuasive, I found myself actually enjoying the backseat romantic subplot regarding his hapless assistant (Lio Tipton) and The Raven. It is so stupid and cheesy but grows stronger as it leans into the silliness of the dynamic and of the movie itself, which is only amplified by the lack of chemistry between the leads. Plus, their age gap is at least ten years, but they're not pushing twenty, and I'm okay with that.
Love Hurts’ Gradual Silliness Works in its Favor
If the silliness of "John Wick killed a dude with a pencil" was used as the basis of an action comedy, then you would have Love Hurts. Where the contrived and confusing plot by screenwriters Matthew Murray, Josh Stoddard, and Luke Passmore falls apart — why did it take three dudes to write something this messy? — the strangeness and wackiness of its tone sometimes still works. Every assassin featured arrives like a villain straight out of One Piece, equipped with a quirk or a gag that adds to the silly atmosphere. The Raven, portrayed by Mustafa Shakir, is a part-time-poet full-time hitman who solely writes about death. King (Marshawn Lynch) and Otis (André Eriksen) are two offbeat henchmen who steal the show every time they're onscreen. Marvin's brother Knuckles spends every second of screen time drinking boba and weaponizes the straw. They all had me grinning ear to ear.
Genuinely, it was the only aspect I was able to latch onto, as the rest of Love Hurts is an unmitigated mess. This is clearly one of those projects that was gathering dust on a shelf for years until 87North said, "We need something for Ke, right?" Considering the film is a little under 90 minutes, it plays like an assembly cut, confused as to what kind of storytelling direction it wants to take, and lacking any rhythmic flow in its execution. Is it a 70s-style neo-noir? Is it a contemporary action thriller? Is it a kitschy action comedy? In the second act, scenes would alternate between two characters engaged in internal monologue, with voiceovers interspersed, and the four different open subplots unfolded all at once. For a movie with an 83-minute runtime, it is paced so poorly it feels as if it's the same length as the other DeBose failure, Argylle. It doesn't get any better with the hapless heist, love story, and betrayal plot. Lynch’s character even asks, "What are we doing now?" His superior, appropriately, fails to give a satisfying answer.
Final Thoughts
Love Hurts features another lovable performance from Ke Huy Quan, but it is bogged down by the laziness and repetitiveness of its structure, story, dialogue, and surprisingly action. It's not so painful as early-year slop goes, but it's nothing to get doe-eyed over, even if you're an action film devotee.
