Love Hurts, 2025.
Directed by Jonathan Eusebio.
Starring Ke Huy Quan, Ariana DeBose, Mustafa Shakir, Lio Tipton, Daniel Wu, Cam Gigandet, Marshawn Lynch, André Eriksen, Rhys Darby, Sean Astin, Drew Scott, Stephanie Sy, Adam Hurtig, Liam Stewart-Kanigan, Yoko Hamamura, and Rawleigh Clements-Willis.
SYNOPSIS:
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 trail, he must confront his past and the history he never fully buried.
From stunt coordinator turned director Jonathan Eusebio, Valentine’s Day romantic comedy actioner Love Hurts stars Academy Award winner Ke Huy Quan as a killer turned domesticated realtor Marvin Gable (as one character puts it, he went from putting bodies in the holes to putting them in their dream homes) but also features a towering poet assassin dubbed The Raven (played by Mustafa Shakir, an imposing physical presence, especially in contrast to someone smaller in stature) adorned in an oversized black coat, who recites his flowery musings before launching into fisticuffs. When the fight poses a challenge, The Raven attaches blades underneath his forearms and starts swinging wildly like he is a Mortal Kombat character and someone is smashing on all the buttons.
One of those characters is a semi-inspired creation. The other is another “make this oversaturated subgenre stop” character in a long line of recent movies about former career criminals trying to keep up their new and morally improved normal life that’s productive to society. Naturally, Love Hurts is frustratingly centered on the latter…
However, it would be generous to say that the issues stop there. The Valentine’s Day angle might sound like a fresh approach, but Jonathan Eusebio (working from a thin screenplay by Luke Passmore, Josh Stoddard, and Matthew Murray) doesn’t seem to know how to capitalize on that other than by having Ke Huy Quan open the film with narration about how the holiday is special and filled with unlimited romantic possibilities. It’s a sentiment that repeats itself in the ending, except coming across as desperate to convince audiences that they have indeed watched a refreshing take on this annoying subgenre that hasn’t just run the well dry but attached the damn thing to a pickup truck and driven off with it.
Somehow, Valentine’s Day feels like an afterthought. The actual plot follows Marvin brought back into the criminal underbelly once his mobster boss brother Knuckles (Daniel Wu) has discovered that before leaving that lifestyle behind, he never killed Academy Award winner Ariana DeBose’s Rose (that name is the level of cringe the filmmakers sink to), who apparently stole and made off with millions of dollars. In love with her (for reasons never explained) but convinced “she could never love a guy like him,” Marvin untied her, let her go, and they haven’t spoken since. Now she is back sending Marvin and the gang mysterious Valentine’s Day cards destined to pull everyone back into the same sphere as some revenge plan. Quite a bit here isn’t clear, but more importantly, this is standard contrived mobster storytelling. Aside from the letters, the story could be told any time of the year.
The only time Love Hurts remotely works, aside from the competent fight choreography and stylistic camerawork circling characters and their attacks or shooting the chaos from unexpected positions such as inside a refrigerator, is when The Raven is on screen. Following a failed attempt at assassinating Marvin, he wakes up surrounded by a frustrated and directionless employee named Ashley (Lio Tipton), who immediately relates to his poetry and starts falling for him. Cutbacks to the two of them connecting following Marvin surviving a life-or-death scenario are amusing and the only running gag that plays into the premise. There are other goons here (one of them played by the usually hilarious Marshawn Lynch, who doesn’t have much to do here but be loud), with one on bad terms with his wife, looking for a solution to get back into her good graces. It’s hardly a predicament specific to Valentine’s Day and more generic subplotting that could be found elsewhere.
Bafflingly, there also isn’t much action in Love Hurts. When there is, the sequences are often so prolonged, treating significant characters like machines that keep popping back up, meaning that any sense of weight or danger is lost. Death is only cruelly reserved for insignificant characters, a punchline that feels mean-spirited and doesn’t fit the otherwise feel-good tone the film strives for. Whether or not Marvin wins the heart of Rose is yet another dynamic that is free of investment. There is admiration in watching Ke Huy Quan take a lead role that gives him more hand-to-hand combat thrills, but this misfire doesn’t deserve one Oscar winner, let alone two. It’s a film that seemingly believes all one needs is a decent premise to stand out without expanding on it through story and action. What hurts is that everyone involved deserves better material.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
