Introduction
Ke Huy Quan is having quite the renaissance. After finding fame as a child actor in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and The Goonies (1985), he made scant appearances for a few years. Eventually, he disappeared from acting altogether from 2002 to 2021. Then, in 2022 he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Everything Everywhere All at Once and it was as if Short Round/Data had never left us. Suddenly, he was hot. He followed up with a great performance in Loki: Season 2. After all those decades and an Oscar, he got what every actor strives for…the lead role in the movie, Love Hurts.
So what if that movie is a dumb, early-February action movie with a scant eighty-three-minute run-time? It’s paycheck time, baby! It’s hard to look at this movie and Quan’s career and not think of the story arc in Friends where Joey finally lands a lead role, but in a poorly funded movie. Except, Love Hurts actually got filmed…and for the bargain-basement price of $18 million.
Synopsis
In Love Hurts, Quan plays Marvin Gable, a realtor who used to be a hitman for his brother Knuckles (Daniel Wu). I hope you’re laughing at that sentence because I did while I was typing it. One of the things I love about bad February action flicks is their absurd premises.
Anyway, after an open house, Marvin returns to his office and we meet the two best characters in the film. The first character is Marvin’s assistant Ashley (Lio Tipton). Ashley has lost all love for her job and possibly her life. Her cynicism is palpable and only Marvin’s childlike glee for the job keeps her from permanently quitting. The second character is Raven (Mustafa Shakir). Raven is a very large, very scary enforcer, sent by Knuckles to pay Marvin a visit. Raven is also a poet. Yes, I said poet. It’s funny because he’s also a killer. Get it?!
In the second act, Ashley meets Raven for the first time, finding him unconscious in Marvin’s office. Thinking he’s dead, she picks up Raven’s journal and is entranced by his poetry describing death and violence (which she originally believes is just a metaphor). When Raven wakes, the two have an instant connection, which justifies Love Hurts being an early Valentine’s Day release.
Theirs is an insane bond, but it’s also endearing in a morbidly fascinating kind of way. And it leads to some great action comedy at the end of the second act. It also makes a mockery of the relationship we’re supposed to care about – the love between Marvin and Rose (Ariana DeBose), Knuckles’ former account.
Discussion
The actual plot of this movie is that Rose has returned from the dead and Knuckles wants her found so he can kill her. In the past, Knuckles ordered Marvin to kill Rose for stealing from him, but Marvin’s love for her made him stage her death. Also, Rose didn’t steal Knuckles’ money and she wants revenge on the guys who did. That’s why Raven was sent to see Marvin. Don’t think about it too hard, you’ll only hurt yourself if you do.
The film unfolds in a very typical action movie format and…it’s kind of fun. Really. Not the story, that’s not fun at all. The story is so underdeveloped that calling it half-baked is giving it way too much credit. What’s fun are the well-choreographed fight scenes and several of the characters.
In addition to Raven and Ashley, Marvin himself is a very likable character. There are also two other lesser enforcers trying to find Rose – Otis (Andre Eriksen) and King (Marshawn Lynch). The banter between Otis and King was very similar to the kinds found in Matthew Vaughn films and, while not nearly as clever as what we get from Vaughn films, Otis and King’s was still entertaining.
Further Analysis
And before you ask, yes, I did do a double-take at realizing King was portrayed by ‘that’ Marshawn Lynch. I wasn’t sure why I recognized Lynch until he literally yelled out “Beast Mode” as he attempted a flying tackle of Marvin. Then, I did a triple-take when I realized Lynch gave a better performance than Wu, Cam Gigandet (playing Knuckle’s second-in-command Renny), and DeBose. Excuse me, Oscar Award winner Ariana DeBose. That’s not an exaggeration – DeBose gave a terrible performance. Like she was auditioning for the next Sharknado! terrible.
It didn’t help that both Rose and the feelings between Marvin and Rose were given practically no development whatsoever. But DeBose took what little she was given to work with and peed all over it. It was almost as if she was determined to cancel Quan’s earnest and sincere performance with an equal and opposite bomb.
Conclusion
But Love Hurts was still more fun than not. I’ve seen this kind of movie in a hundred other films, so I focused more on the good characters and fun (if not silly and slapsticky) action than I did on the crappy characters and a screenplay that was clearly edited with a chainsaw. And I love that Quan is embracing every minute of his second life.
Rating: Ask for four dollars back and another lead role for Quan.
