‘Love Hurts’ Turns Ke Huy Quan Into a Strong Action Lead Fighting a Plot That Goes Nowhere

Alci Rengifo

A movie riffing on a specific holiday has to stay true to its punchline. “Love Hurts” is advertising itself as some kind of action romp turning Valentine’s Day upside down. On the poster Ke Huy Quan poses with a tough guy stance, surrounded by heart-shaped candy. This is all quite enticing. Alas, the resulting movie is a skillful display of what a good team can pull off with decent choreography and efficient cinematography and nothing more. The running joke curiously never takes off. Quan, who continues to undergo a long overdue renaissance, does indeed have promise as an action lead. Here he’s joining the roster of the ongoing genre of middle-aged men who dress like proper suburbanites but are hiding a super killer from their past. 

Quan is Marvin Gable, a Milwaukee realtor running a successful office that specializes in selling picture-perfect suburban homes. He is a mild-mannered guy who very much likes his job while his top employee, the very lonely Ashley (Lio Tipton), looks like she’s ready to call it quits. Then, a crimson envelope arrives for Marvin with a cryptic message. He instantly deduces it’s from Rose (Ariana DeBose), a lost love from his past. You see, in the past Marvin was a hitman working with ruthless criminals like his brother, Knuckles (Daniel Wu), who is on the hunt for Rose. This also means Marvin is a target for a parade of assassins, like the poet The Raven (Mustafa Shakir). Yes, you read that correctly. Now Marvin and Rose must evade lots of bullets and fast cars and eventually have a showdown with Knuckles.

The justification for the marketing is that these events are apparently taking place during Valentine’s Day, though the holiday plays no factor in the plot aside from Marvin’s office being festooned with decorations. Unlike “Heart Eyes,” the slasher romance premiering on the same day as this, there’s no satirical bite or at least a few decent, bad jokes relating to the supposed gag. “Love Hurts” stands best as a calling card for director Jonathan Eusebio, who is making his debut after working as a stunt and fight coordinator on major films like “John Wick,” “Black Panther,” “Violent Night” and “Deadpool 2.” Most of his attention goes to the style of the movie, which is lit with neon efficiency by Bridger Nielson. The fight scenes are never too grandiose but deliver on a silly, popcorn level. At one point two hitmen fight with a giant spoon and fork inside a suburban kitchen. The Raven not only writes romantic verses, he extracts feather-textured blades from his shoes. 

Why any of these events are happening is hard to follow if your attention drops. There’s no clear enough or coherent flow to the story. Movies in this style such as “Taken” or “Nobody” start off with a very simple premise. Someone gets kidnapped or our hero breaks the nose of some Russian mobster’s brother, inspiring the former’s wrath. “Love Hurts” isn’t about anything in particular aside from Knuckles throwing a fit, and there’s some subplot involving a bag full of money. It’s the action and gloss of the film’s look that carry it along. Fatal to the narrative is that there’s little chemistry between Marvin and Rose. The unrequited romance just isn’t there because their exchanges are so flat. You need some spark or juice to a good pairing of assassins who deep down want each other again. The lines exchanged between these two wouldn’t make it onto a Hallmark card.

On his own, Ke Huy Quan is still very entertaining with his eternal look of the mild-mannered nice guy caught in extreme situations. After winning the Oscar for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” he’s making the typical move of going for leading roles in popcorn genre franchises. This kind of action movie is perfect for him. Like Bob Odenkirk in “Nobody,” he fits great in an action movie tailored to his strengths. When he turns into the hidden tough guy at the end, we buy it. Ariana DeBose is the one who gets shortchanged by the script, not seeming to know what to do with her performance. Instead of making Rose dangerously appealing, she overdoes it playing her as a bit nuts. Lio Tipton hits the comedic timing better as Marvin’s employee who falls for The Raven, smitten by his poetry and sharing hilariously corny dialogue with the eloquent hitman. They also have the one storyline that actually goes with the whole purported in-joke of this movie. “Love Hurts” is well made on a technical level while throwing punches that look good before missing the mark.

“Love Hurts” releases Feb. 7 in theaters nationwide.