The premise of Love Hurts is a story that we have seen before: a hitman leaves the ‘life’ only to be brought back due to a.) unfinished business, or b.) someone from the past comes back into their life. We have seen this story in the amazing John Wick movies and the incredible A History of Violence. In Love Hurts, the main character, Marvin Gable (Ke Huy Quan), is a real estate agent with a past that returns to him on Valentine’s Day. This disrupts his new life and pulls him back into the lifestyle he once left.
Marvin is having a great day when he receives a Valentine’s card from an old associate named Rose (Ariana DeBose). Back in the day, Marvin was assigned a task with Rose and now she’s returned to get revenge on those who turned on her. The backstory between the two is told in bits and pieces throughout the movie, but that is not the only story revealed.
We meet a cavalcade of characters in the movie who have their own story being told. The two henchmen, Otis and King (André Eriksen & Marshawn Lynch), are dealing with Otis’s marital issues. The back-and-forth between these two characters is pretty hilarious, and I would love to see a short film with them on a mission. Ashley (Lio Tipton), who works with Marvi,n is rethinking her career and has an interesting encounter with the assassin, The Raven (Mustafa Shakir). We also meet Alvin, A.K.A. Knuckles (Daniel Wu) who wants Rose taken care of and sends his right-hand man, Renny Merlo (Cam Gigandet) after her.
The movie is pretty fast-paced, getting into the first fight within 15 minutes of the movie starting. The fight scenes are pretty intense and well-choreographed. What is great is that Ke Huy, who used to be a stunt coordinator, does a lot of the fighting scenes himself. You can see that it is him during the close-ups— and he looks great in them. The fights are a mix of Jackie Chan movies and full-on brawls. Marvin uses everything in the room to fight off his opponents, from cookie cutters to framed pictures; everything is a weapon in this movie.
Love Hurts is a fun time in the theaters, even though there feels to be too much is going on with all of the characters (and I didn’t even mention the rival real estate broker). Within all of this chaos is a good story about a man trying to find his peace, knowing that he has to go through hell to get it back. Everyone in this movie is trying to find something, and the audience is on the journey with them. Marvin does not look like a badass, even though he is. Maybe this will not be the last time we see him.
Love Hurts is an action-packed comedy that has some fun moments but suffers from too much going on at times. The multiple storylines cloud the focus on Marvin’s story and feel like they were not fully developed. However, the action scenes are great and seeing Ke Huy Quan kick ass is a must-see!
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