Reeder’s Movie Reviews: Love Hurts

Ah, yes, “the things we do for love.” With all due respect to the British band 10cc, which had a hit with that song back in 1976, the new film from first-time director Jonathan Eusebio demonstrates that not all things leave the best impression.

His cast features a pair of Academy Award winners: Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All At Once) and Ariana DeBose (West Side Story). Sean Astin, who appeared with Ke in the cult classic The Goonies (set in Astoria, Oregon), has a supporting role as his boss.   Seattle Seahawks legend Marshawn “Beastmode” Lynch also crashes the proceedings. You like the cast, and you want to like this movie, with its release timed for the weekend before Valentine’s Day. However, even with a modest running time of 83 minutes, it will try your patience.

In his first lead role, Ke Huy Quan portrays Marvin Gable, a former hitman become successful Milwaukee realtor. His new life gives him meaning, as he tells us in one of many voiceovers, and he exudes positivity. Unfortunately, a former criminal partner, Rose Carlisle (DeBose), interrupts this tranquil existence, as she begins leaving messages with Marvin and various unreformed characters, all written in pink, heart-shaped cards. The past interrupts the present, leading to the ultimate confrontation between Marvin and his crime lord brother, “Knuckles,” played by Daniel Wu (Into the Badlands). Sometimes you just can’t break up with your past, nor break free of caricatures.

Love Hurts attempts to blend comedy, romance and action, but the recipe fails. The amount and degree of violence overwhelms the alternatively bland and silly attempts at humor, along with the half-hearted romantic elements. 

Indeed, criminal characters, even assassins, can utter witty or poetic dialogue. (Sir Ben Kingsley has a scene in the excellent black comedy/crime film, Sexy Beast, in which he spews a rapid-fire barrage of profanity that registers as a brilliant, almost Shakespearean monologue.) Likewise, violence as a theme can co-exist with comedy, with both retaining their essence and narrative value. (Think Fargo, Pulp Fiction or the immensely entertaining John Wick franchise.)  In the case of Love Hurts, you become too aware of the graphic violence, at the expense of the rest of the storytelling. Three credited writers, only one with any experience in feature films, produced the script, whose abrupt shifts of tone (exacerbated by choppy editing) defeat the best efforts of the actors to rise above them.

The Filipino-American director Jonathan Eusebio has realized a solid career as a stunt and fight scene coordinator (from the Bourne series to last year’s The Fall Guy), and it shows here. The martial arts scenes are imaginatively staged and often drenched in neon. They provide an energy and a commitment to genre–the feel of a 1970s era exploitation picture with a modern aesthetic–that the movie’s other elements sorely lack.

David Leitch, The Fall Guy’s director, serves as a producer here, reinforcing its pedigree as a project rooted in the world of stunt work and filmmaking. Chad Stahelski, who began his career as Keanu Reeves’ body double, has made all four of the John Wick pictures, on which Jonathan Eusebio worked as a stunt performer and/or assistant director. It’s a successful fraternity, but it’s not enough to inspire Love Hurts.

Ke Huy Kwan has long dreamt of becoming a leading man on the big screen, having lived through years of frustrating, unsuccessful auditions. His character, Marvin, tells his assistant to find something (or someone) she loves and then pursue it. Love Hurts offers a generally talented cast, lots of pink and red in keeping with the season, and a deadly array of weapons (cookie cutters, stiletto heels, bubble tea straws). It wants to seduce you with its romantic and escapist intentions. For Ke, this role has been a long time coming. Too bad the film he finally gets to lead is such a dud. Sadly, that hurts.