Of course, the powers-that-be in Hollywood saw Ke Huy Quan’s Oscar-winning performance in EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE and decided that they should exploit his prowess in the Kung Fu scenes by turning him into a modern-day Jackie Chan. That seems to be the thinking for his role in the new action-comedy LOVE HURTS, but it’s a misconceived notion entirely. Quan isn’t a deft action star like Chan, and he labors throughout this hopeless mishmash of character comedy, love story, and elaborately staged violence. It’s far too nasty, starved for genuine laughs, and bogged down with an overly confusing plot. This should be a breezy Valentine comedy with some amusing, action set pieces, but instead, it has the charm of a breakup text.
Quan plays a successful realtor named Marvin Gable, the kind of guy who puts his face all over his advertising and yet is naïve enough to be hurt when vandals draw mustaches on them. For a man clearly in his 50s, that’s hard to swallow; even more so when it’s revealed quite early in the narrative that Marvin used to be the head enforcer for his mob-boss brother Alvin (Daniel Wu). Marvin escaped that life to start anew in the realty trade and now he’s so milquetoast and sweet, he bakes homemade Valentine’s cookies for his coworkers and schleps them to the office on a bike. Even though he’s in a ‘burb next to his old stomping grounds, we’re supposed to buy that Marvin thinks he’s made a clean break of it. And sure enough, it’s not long before his realty domain is disrupted when one of Alvin’s goons catches up with him. (Hmmm, maybe those ads with his face plastered everywhere were a bad idea.)
The enforcer sent to retrieve Marvin is called The Raven (played by Mustafa Shakir, in the film’s only winning performance) and he’s a droll killer with a penchant for tossing knives and writing self-pitying poetry. Marvin resists his offer to return to the fold, a la A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, and it isn’t long before the two of them are having a vicious fight, knocking all about Marvin’s office. Why the action needs to be so brutal and bloody is one of the film’s nagging questions. It’s as if Quentin Tarantino came in to guest direct those sequences. Of course, no one in the office notices all the noise and shaking walls save his beleaguered assistant Ashley. She’s played by Lio Tipton, a fine comedic actress who deserves better, and after Marvin knocks out The Raven, she’ll discover him and start a wholly unnecessary B-story romance. It feels forced, likely existing to shore up the film’s Valentine context.
The rest of the film makes even less sense with all kinds of thugs trying to retrieve Marvin and leaving all kinds of destruction and wounding in their wake. The spiraling out-of-control plot also weaves in an Aussie accountant, innocent home buyers, and a rival realtor. Ariana DeBose shows up to tie the plot together as a former lover and fellow thug of Marvin’s, but their chemistry feels forced as their banter is stilted, as are their fights. The movie gets most of its mileage out of the mayhem that occurs at a suburban home that Marvin is trying to close on, but as it gets destroyed by bullets and flailing bodies, you might feel more sympathy for the wrecked interiors than the vicious players.
Hollywood doesn’t quite know what to do with fellow Oscar winner DeBose either, outside of her accomplished hosting gigs on the Tonys, and it’s shocking how little screen time she has here. No wonder Quan is solo in the movie’s poster; the romance feels like an afterthought. The whole movie feels just as misjudged with its frantic script by Matthew Murray, Josh Stoddard, and Luke Passmore, as well as its schtick-laden direction by Jonathan Eusebio. You can practically see the plot points announcing themselves, not to mention the actors counting the moves in their unconvincingly choreographed fight sequences.
Hopefully, Quan, DeBose, Shakir, and Tipton will get more love and better opportunities from those powers that be in Hollywood. This vehicle they’ve saddled them with doesn’t just hurt, it leaves a mark.
