Movie Review: ‘Love Hurts’

The latest martial arts effort from the team behind ‘John Wick’ and Nobody’ has a few moments of flare but feels like a fixer-upper in need of some work.

Ke Huy Quan as Marvin Gable in 'Love Hurts', directed by Jonathan Eusebio. Photo: Universal Pictures.

‘Love Hurts’ receives 6 out of 10 stars.

Punching its way into theaters on February 14th, ‘Love Hurts’ wants to be your date-night alternative with extra punching to balance out its (admittedly minor) romantic subplot.

Yet unfortunately for ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan, who finally seizes the chance to be the main lead of a movie, that film is a decidedly weak affair. Though that’s not the fault of the person at the top of the call sheet, who puts in a dedicated performance that alternates between the cheery man we usually know him as and a steel-spined badass.

Will ‘Love Hurts’ have you falling for it?

(L to R) Marvin Gable (Ke Huy Quan) and Rose Carlisle (Ariana DeBose) in 'Love Hurts', directed by Jonathan Eusebio. Photo: Universal Pictures.

Perhaps the biggest issue with this new effort from the 87North production company (overseen by former stuntman-turned-director David Leitch) is that it feels so completely tied to their usual formula that it doesn’t have the chance to establish its own identity.

While the action genre got a shot in the arm (and the head, and legs and…) via ‘John Wick,’ later movies looking to bottle some of that stunt-heavy madness have fallen into a predictable routine.

We’ve had ‘Violent Night,’ in which Santa Claus proved to be a grumpy, ass-kicking fighter and most pertinent here, 2021’s ‘Nobody’ in which Bob Odenkirk played a hapless family man hiding a secret past as a ruthlessly efficient government agent, whose past comes back to haunt him.

In ‘Love Hurts, Quan’s Marvin Gable is… a hapless, friendly realtor hiding a secret past as a ruthlessly efficient killer whose –– you guessed it! –– past comes back to haunt him. There is a distinct feeling of the writers copy and pasting much of the basics and tweaking a few elements here and there.

Script and Direction

(L to R) Ke Huy Quan, producer Guy Danella, director Jonathan Eusebio and stunt designer and coordinator Can Aydin on the set of 'Love Hurts'. Photo: Universal Pictures.

The screenplay from Matthew Murray, Josh Stoddard and Luke Passmore fills us in on the basics –– we meet Melvin in his present life, but what he got up to in previous years invades his seemingly meek and tranquil existence when Rose (Ariana DeBose) shows back up, defacing his realtor bus ads and posters, and sending cryptic love notes.

What transpires is a truly generic tale of money stolen from a powerful violent gangster named Knuckles (Daniel Wu), who also happens to be Marvin’s brother. There are the expected colorful criminal characters, here including a knife-toting assassin who is also a poet and two squabbling heavies.

‘Love Hurts’ tone pivots wildly from silly comedy to bone-crunching violence as though it’s being kicked around a room, while it attempts to find a balance, it never quite does, one death in particular being nasty and unnecessary, another, of someone played by a performer with more of a background in the property reality TV world at least amusing.

(L to R) Ke Huy Quan and director Jonathan Eusebio on the set of Love Hurts'. Photo: Universal Pictures.

Making his directorial debut is Jonathan Eusebio, the latest recruit from the stunt ranks given the chance to call the shots. He brings enough style to the movie without too much visual trickery obscuring what he knows the majority of the audience is here to see: the fights.

Yet while there are certainly some well-staged moments of action to be found, even those start to become numbing after a while. One major clash set at Marvin’s home is bursting with entertaining gags, but the big final rumble smacks of overload, a batch of nondescript henchmen dispatched and a climactic showdown between two main characters disappointing, and surely easily solved were another character to simply intervene earlier.

Logic and sense are rarely the focus of movies such as these, but this one has some particularly egregious examples including characters who seemingly get knocked out with one punch at times, while at others they can absorb all sorts of punishment and keeping on fighting.

Performances

Ke Huy Quan as Marvin Gable in 'Love Hurts', directed by Jonathan Eusebio. Photo: Universal Pictures.

Quan deserved better than this, but he still puts everything he has into the role and plays both versions of Marvin –– the friendly, meek realtor and the stone-cold assassin –– with his whole heart. Yet he can’t quite make it all hang together.

And the less said about the attempts to conjure a romantic connection between his character and Ariana DeBose’s Rose (20 years his junior) the better. DeBose, meanwhile, doesn’t fare all that well either, though she brings an insouciant air to most of her scenes.

Ariana DeBose as Rose Carlisle in 'Love Hurts', directed by Jonathan Eusebio. Photo: Universal Pictures.

Daniel Wu, meanwhile, does what he can with an underwritten role as a the big bad (and Marvin’s brother), whose defining trait besides anger and violence is his love of Boba tea.

Around them are the supporting villains, including The Raven (Mustafa Shakir), the poet/assassin, who takes an unexpected shine to Marvin’s harried assistant Ashley (an amusing Lio Tipton), and back-talking duo Otis (André Eriksen) and King (athlete-turned-actor Marshawn Lynch), who are… fine?

Final Thoughts

(L to R) The Raven (Mustafa Shakir) and Marvin Gable (Ke Huy Quan) in 'Love Hurts', directed by Jonathan Eusebio. Photo: Universal Pictures.

Given his triumphant, award-winning return to our screens, you really would’ve have hoped for more for Ke Huy Quan.

But while the stunt team show their usual level of inventiveness, the movie around them is a blandly generic, only sporadically funny affair. To paraphrase one of the lead’s classic roles: “Dr. Jones, we’ve little time for ‘Love Hurts.’ ”

Love Hurts

"You can't break up with your past."

R1 hr 23 minFeb 7th, 2025

Showtimes & Tickets

A realtor is pulled back into the life he left behind after his former partner-in-crime resurfaces with an ominous message. With his crime-lord brother also on his... Read the Plot

What is the plot of ‘Love Hurts’?

Marvin Gable (Ke Huy Quan) is a successful realtor who’s past as a violent hitman comes back to haunt him when his former partner (Ariana DeBose) reveals that his brother (Daniel Wu) is hunting him.