Movie Review: ‘Love Hurts’

Tweet
Love Hurts is an action/comedy that does not waste a minute of its’ short 83-minute runtime. It is the latest project in Ke Huy Quan’s resurgent acting career and, while I will not say it is better than Everything Everywhere All At Once or Loki (season 2), it was very entertaining in terms of both action and comedy; and, sure, the romantic Valentine’s Day themed storylines were cute, too, even if some of them were absurd or underdeveloped.

Ke Huy Quan plays a successful real estate agent, Marvin Gable, whose past life as a hitman for his brother returns with a vengeance. He desperately tries to cling to his new life, but his former love interest, Rose (Ariana DeBose), whose death he helped fake to hide her from his brother, won’t allow him to keep his old self hidden. Intermingling with that main plotline are a few side stories and characters. There are a pair of assassins after Marvin, one of whom is having marriage troubles. Another assassin, also after Marvin, falls in love with Marvin’s depressed assistant, leading to another set of conflicts and cool action scenes. Marvin’s boss is played by Sean Astin, providing a mini-Goonies reunion (a behind-the-scenes video shows a third member of The Goonies cast, Jeff Cohen, who is now a lawyer, visited the set while they were filming Sean’s scenes). And a rival real estate agent (with a disappearing car) provides some comic relief and proves that, unlike what John Wick might have you believe, not everyone can take on trained assassins.

Most of the characters are only developed enough to fit the thin story that ties together the fight scenes and comedic elements, so do not go in expecting substance or depth; there is an underlying theme about being your true self, but even that doesn’t get too deep. However, if you are a fan of well-choreographed fight scenes and/or Ke Huy Quan, this will be an entertaining thrill ride. I certainly enjoyed the movie, even parts that I found silly and unrealistic (and I am not referring to the fight scenes, but rather certain character actions or the use of a pay phone in 2025). Plenty of laughter could be heard in the audience that I was in, although I did notice a couple of people walk out and not return (they were seated next to me, it was hard to not notice).

Side note, I enjoyed The Goonies reunion in this movie but had completely forgotten about Ke Huy Quan’s connection to The Goonies until Sean Astin appeared on screen. Weird, I know. Even though Sean Astin has appeared in many more movies, I more closely associate The Goonies with Sean Astin than any of the other actors. I spent more time during this movie thinking about how Ke Huy Quan worked on the fight choreography for the first X-Men movie rather than being one of The Goonies. A couple of the other audience members, prior to the film, were discussing movies and one of them mentioned he didn’t really care for The Goonies, and I thought to myself, “that is a random reference” and I still did not connect the dots at that time.