You just can't help but root for Ke Huy Quan. The former child star has experienced a career resurgence for the ages with his Oscar-winning performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once, and it seems like everyone wants to see his continued (and long-overdue) success. Love Hurts is Quan's first starring vehicle since the Oscar win, and while I hope it isn't the last, it's surely off to a rough start.
Quan plays Marvin Gable, a happy-go-lucky realtor who shows up every day to work with a pep in his step, a smile on his face, and fresh-baked cookies for clients and co-workers alike. However, Marv's world gets thrown upside down when he receives a mysterious Valentine's Day card from Rose (Ariana DeBose), a former associate of his.
It turns out Marv was formerly a ruthless hitman for his brother, mob boss Knuckles (Daniel Wu). Rose stole more than $2 million from Knuckles, but due to his feelings for her, he helped her escape by faking her death. Now that she's resurfaced, Knuckles is on the hunt for the two of them, forcing Marv to tap into his old life in order to save his new one.
On the positive side, the action choreography is great, but that's a given considering the work by Quan (himself a former stunt coordinator), the John Wick production team 87North, and former stuntman and first-time director Jonathan Eusebio.
There are two great fight scenes in the first few minutes: the first is a tight close-quarters fight against bladed assassin The Raven (Mustafa Shakir); the second is a chaotic two-on-one brawl against goofy hitmen King (Marshawn Lynch) and Otis (André Eriksen) that makes great use of the kitchen setting, like something out of a late-'90s Jackie Chan flick. There's also a fun shootout that intermixes all four characters in an entertaining way.
The problem is that nearly every other aspect of Love Hurts outside of the action is middling at best and slapdash at worst. Love Hurts is riddled with tired cliché after tired cliché from top to bottom. It relies heavily on expository voice-over from multiple characters, but it comes across more like the writers realized they forgot to flesh out these characters or any sort of tangible plot until post-production.
The comedic beats in Love Hurts mostly rely on the villains' "quirky" traits à la Tarantino -- namely, King and Otis's discussions on the latter's marriage troubles and The Raven's poetry obsession. But aside from a couple of chuckle-worthy line deliveries from Lynch and Shakir, they mostly fall flat. That's not even getting into how completely bland Knuckles and his right-hand man, Renny Murlo (Cam Gigandet), are, down to the generic "You steal from Knuckles, you die" threat that's repeated ad nauseam. Wu is an accomplished star in his own right, and it's disappointing that he's given absolutely nothing to work with.
Worst of all is Ariana DeBose, who, between this and Kraven the Hunter back-to-back, I'm convinced is in full-on "Oscar slump" territory. While Quan manages to stay afloat due to his "aw shucks" likeability, DeBose spends more time being irritating than intriguing, and the pair's chemistry is completely inert.
There's more emotional resonance in a scene between Quan and his Goonies co-star Sean Astin (playing Marv's boss, Cliff) than there is in any of the attempts at romantic tension between Marv and Rose. She spends most of the movie prodding Marv to become the old him in order to "take his life back," but it's never clear what that even means to begin with. It makes sense for her to be tired of hiding, but it doesn't for Marv, who's already content and fulfilled with his life to begin with. Even by the end, it's unclear how his life changed at all.
At best, her comments are meant to signify that Marv should be able to take risks again, but Love Hurts doesn't even attempt to do that itself, so it just rings hollow. Funnily enough, a romance that develops between The Raven and Marv's assistant, Ashley, feels more believable than the one at the centre of the story.
Ultimately, Love Hurts does prove that Quan is capable of carrying a film. However, likeability can only go so far if everything around him is as empty as the model homes Marvin sells.