“Love Hurts” (2025) stars Ke Huy Quan in an action comedy set in Milwaukee on Valentine’s Day 2025. A former legendary assassin turned award-winning real estate agent, Marvin Gable, is in trouble when one of his hits, Rose Carlisle (Ariana DeBose) turns out to be alive. His former boss and brother, Alvin, also known as Knuckles (Daniel Wu), enlists his henchmen to kill her and get him back on the clock. Marvin is a Timex—he takes a licking and keeps on ticking. His brother wants him back, not dead, though actions indicate otherwise. Will Marvin lose the new life that he created for five years and return to a life under his brother’s thumb or find a balance between the past and his ideal, normal life? Only love can find a way! Too bad the only convincing love story is not between the main characters.
Behind the camera, Quan is a legendary fight coordinator, which Americans caught a glimpse of in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (2022), which also revealed that he is not just the lovable, goofy, selfie, starstruck off screen persona that won hearts, but a smoldering smoke show with the right filmmakers behind the camera. Anyone going to see “Love Hurts” is hoping that he would get to showcase his talents and finally get what he deserves: a leading role as a love interest and bad ass fighter. Even though the movie does its best to deliver, its best is not good enough, and the people who worked on the promotional poster should have been in charge. Writers Matthew Murray, Josh Stoddard and Luke Passmore’s dialogue spends too much time establishing that the henchmen are astonished that he can fight when the henchmen know that he can fight. It has been five years, not fifty, since he had his last job. If more people from his realtor business witnessed him kicking ass and expressed astonishment, it would be tolerable and maybe even funny, but a little goes a long way. The writing team never trusted the audience to innately understand the incongruity and felt the need to painfully spell out everything thus repelling the very people who went into the movie loving it and leaving disappointed.
The writing trio decided to use multiple narrators to explain the grand themes about not running away, do what you love and change your life. It never resonates whether the narrators are speaking individually or alternating in the same scene. Just show, don’t tell. Unfortunately, on that front, first time director Jonathan Eusebio, a prolific and talented stunt and fight coordinator, often makes choices that undercut the suspension of disbelief that moviegoers are actually watching the characters fight with a heavy-handed framing and editing style. It is rare to get a shot of a fight where the blow is not interrupted multiple times, and when it happens, it is impressive, but Quan diehards are going to be pissed lest less fervent and knowledgeable patrons leave the theater thinking that he is not as good as he is. It is probably to help his costars appear like they are an actual threat to this cinematic David. There are not enough fight scenes, and the action elements never blend well with the rom com vibe.
“Love Hurts” knows what it needed to do for Marvin because it does the reverse with The Raven (Mustafa Shakir), an assassin with a creative side who tries to kill Marvin while he is clocking in at the office. The best fight and romantic scenes involve him and feel equal parts realistic and absurd. It is too bad that they could not reverse engineer that magic for Marv! Instead, Marv’s overarching story feels like a throwback that would have worked decades ago, and the romance with De Bose is at least more believable than her role as another lawyer trying to outsmart crime bosses in “Kraven the Hunter” (2024), but that is not saying much. The dynamic is very classic film noir femme fatale sucking the hero into her drama except he is flawed. De Bose looks great, and her energy is higher here, but she is definitely in a blink twice if you need help situation because her roles after winning the Oscar are at odds with her earlier choices and stellar performances. She has a long way to go before she hits the unforgiveable movie trifecta that Johnny Depp did with “The Lone Ranger” (2013), “Transcendence” (2014) and “Mortdecai” (2014), but it feels like she is working on it. Whenever she appears on the screen, Eusebio succeeds at shouting out Blaxsploitation and seventies action films with their cool cars much like Quentin Tarantino did in “Jackie Brown” (1997), but Tarantino had a story and a star like Pam Grier that was strong enough to hold up the sumptuous visuals, so it did not feel like a Potemkin Village. It was nice to know that Eusebio could come alive and be inspired then convey that thrill and pleasure to his audience, but the whole film needed to rise to that level of joy.
Despite its many flaws, lowered expectations are the key to enjoying “Love Hurts.” Some of the bits are funny. Crime partners King (football player Marshawn Lynch) and Otis (André Eriksen) are hilarious as King tries to give Otis advice on how to fix his relationship. Kippy Betts (Rhys Darby) is an Australian accountant who resembles a rat as he tries to get out of his predicament. Ashley (Lip Tipton), Marvin’s depressed assistant, is a nice counterbalance with her boss’ upbeat demeanor, and she has a better storyline than most. “The Goonies” (1985) fans will be psyched to see Sean Astin as Marvin’s boss, brother from another mother and mentor, but it is a cameo that spans two scenes and is not a reason to see the film in theaters even at matinee prices. HGTV personality Drew Scott, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Zachary Levi, no disrespect intended, makes a cameo as Jeff Zaks, Marvin’s opposite, a real estate agent who yearns for a more exciting and violent life.
Daniel Wu as Marvin’s brother, Alvin, is uneven, but he gets stronger as “Love Hurts” unfolds. He has some of the funniest, long running sight gags and brutal fight scenes involving Boba Tea. The filmmakers did not do him any favors with their tendency to wildly tone shift at unpredictable intervals instead of executing gradual or smoother transitions. His right-hand man, Renny Merlo (Cam Gigandet), could have been cut from the whole story, and no one would notice. Gigandet appears in a lot of movies and is mostly forgettable, but he must be the nicest actor to work with because he keeps getting jobs. Additionally, there is a big reveal about who Knuckles’ boss is, but once revealed, it was a shock that none of the characters exclaimed loud, “Who?” They do not even get lines. Here is where a well-placed cameo would have come in handy to hammer home the resolution’s impact.
As one of four films released in February in honor of Valentine’s Day—“Companion” (2025), “Heart Eyes” (2025) and “Love Me” (2025)—and aim to celebrate the holiday with unexpected genre mashups that lead to heightened tension, “Love Hurts” just does not feel compelling since the stakes are virtually nonexistent. Even though the runtime is blessedly short, it still feels like an eternity.
