I’m genuinely excited that actor Ke Huy Quan is having a resurgence right now. His Oscar-winning turn in Everything Everywhere All at Once, as well as his supporting work in season 2 of Loki, were the secret weapon of both projects that pushed them into a higher level of greatness.
But with Love Hurts, he’s moving into leading man territory in an action movie that feels utterly familiar and skimpy in terms of both its story and action beats. Directed by first-time filmmaker and longtime stunt coordinator Jonathan Eusebio, the film centers on Quan’s Marvin Gable, a realtor in the Milwaukee suburbs whose business is thriving thanks to his positive attitude and attention to client needs. He’s got a dedicated assistant (Lio Tipton’s Ashley) and a boss (Sean Astin) who treats him like a brother.
But one day at the office, Marvin gets an unexpected Valentine’s Day card from someone that is supposed to be dead, or at least pretending to be dead. And before long, the dark and secret past that Marvin left behind years earlier is coming back to haunt him in a very violent and brutal way. He has hitmen after him, including the quietly terrifying Raven (Mustafa Shakir), as well as a pair of idiots played by Super Bowl champion Marshawn “Beastmode" Lynch (who was so good in Bottoms) and André Eriksen. They all work for Marvin’s estranged brother Knuckles (Daniel Wu, Tomb Raider), a criminal kingpin, who wants to know the whereabout of the not-so-mysterious letter sender who everyone knows is Rose (Ariana DeBose, West Side Story), Marvin’s former partner who he was supposed to kill but instead let go because he loved her.
There’s some superfluous subplots about missing money and a Russian overlord who Knuckles has been skimming funds from for years; there’s also Knuckles' duplicitous right-hand man (Cam Gigandet) and an accountant (Rhys Darby) who has access to all of the criminal funds, but really, they only need his fingerprint. This short (under 90 minutes), high-energy, low-brains revenge thriller is really just a ticking-down clock, as we wait for whatever it is that turns Marvin from his nerdy, mild-mannered current self into the killing machine he was when he worked with his brother and with Rose. And this is a shame, because part of the fun of the first half of the movie is watching Marvin fight like a martial arts expert while trying so hard not to murder anyone. So when the switch is finally turned, he’s simply an assassin like everyone else in the Love Hurts.
Quan is his usual affable self, even after he becomes a rage monster, but I was having trouble keeping track of who was trying to kill who and why. The countless double-crosses and blurry allegiances don’t help things, but I did enjoy watching Marvin stage an open house and then have the place immediately get utterly trashed. There is at least one sort of funny in-joke about having Marvin’s professional real estate rival be Property Brother Drew Scott, who also happens to be a black belt in karate (he does indeed get an action moment as well).
But there are no surprises in Love Hurts, no emotional connections even as part of the supposed love story, and I never even came close to knowing these characters well enough to care if they lived or died when the smoke cleared. That’s the deadliest combination in what is meant to be a quirky action comedy with heart.
The film is now playing in theaters.
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