Love Hurts – Review

Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 23 minutes, Director – Jonathan Eusebio

Real estate agent Marvin Gable (Ke Huy Quan) loves his work and the people he meets, however one Valentine’s Day sees his past catch up with him, with deadly consequences if he continues to run.

Love Hurts is definitely more in the vein of Nobody, with whom it shares producers, rather than John Wick. Not just for the everyday-guy’s violent past but the more comedic angle that it takes. We see it as an office is wrecked with pencils and awards being used as weapons against giant blades and knives. While the likely intended humour of these instances doesn’t always come through there’s still a likable, if not entirely frantic, nature to the action sequences when they crop up. As things progress the inspirations of the aforementioned action flicks begins to fade and Love Hurts becomes something of a much more familiar, standard actioner – although it could be argued that since John Wick the standard actioner is changing.

Marvin Gable (Ke Huy Quan) is the man using whatever’s around him to defend himself against towering, muscled attackers. Each trying to take him to his brother, known as Knuckles (Daniel Wu), who had finally caught up with him. As a mysterious and violent past comes to light Marvin is torn between running once again and keeping up his life as a friendly, well-liked realtor. This clash especially comes to life when underwritten old flame Rose (Ariana DeBose) returns, seeking vengeance for what Knuckles did to her years before.

Quan holds his own in the leading role and manages to create a likable and entertaining figure in an increasingly familiar film. Convention rears its head more and more as the, admittedly and helpfully short, run-time moves along. Amusing beats are scattered here and there with a couple of good punches and chuckles, and again Quan doing a good job at the centre of the film as Marvin finds himself increasingly torn, despite only one option being possible as all roads begin to lead multiple forces to him at once.

Occasionally some of these roads can feel somewhat like padding just to push the run-time that bit further, but there’s some enjoyment to be found along the way with certain scenes – particularly involving Marvin’s assistant Ashley (Lio Tipton) and Mustafa Shakir’s deadly knife-wielder known as The Raven. Generally things move along well enough and the action manages to provide enough amusement, especially when bringing in some inventiveness with the weapons which Quan picks up here and there. It may not have as much of a memorable nature as some of the titles which have clearly inspired it, or the same punch – in general it appears to be going for a lighter tone with its Valentine’s Day setting – but while it’s on there’s an amusing enough actioner here helped by an engaging lead performance from Ke Huy Quan.

Ke Huy Quan’s likable leading turn helps to push through some of the overfamiliar beats of Love Hurts’ somewhat plain narrative. The action has its moments, especially when leaning into inventiveness, but the basics of the overall structure hold the film back and shows its conventions.