Love Hurts: A Killer Valentine's Day Thriller or Just a Gimmick?

I can’t say I’ve ever been a big fan of Valentine’s Day, but I love movies based around holidays. Whether it’s Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, or any other special day, I simply can’t resist a good film about a well-known holiday, and Valentine’s Day is no exception. So naturally, when I first got wind of Love Hurts, I was instantly intrigued. This movie seemed to have it all: amazing action, fun comedy, and one of my absolute favorite actors in the world, and on top of all that, it’s based on a holiday. If you ask me, that combination is pretty hard to beat, so when tickets finally went on sale, I bought one for opening weekend as soon as I got the chance.

Love Hurts was directed by Jonathan Eusebio, and it stars Ke Huy Quan, Ariana DeBose, Daniel Wu, Marshawn Lynch, Mustafa Shakir, Lio Tipton, and André Eriksen. In the film, Marvin Gable is a successful real estate agent with a dark past. He used to be an assassin for his brother Alvin, but he’s put that life behind him. Now he helps people find their dream homes, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Unfortunately, this peaceful existence doesn’t last forever. Soon after the movie begins, an old colleague named Rose resurfaces and pulls him back into his former life, and the pair find that they have targets on their backs. Alvin is out to get them, so Marvin and Rose have to do everything in their power to fight back against the deadly mob boss and his cronies.

On paper, that sounds like it could be a super fun riff on the now familiar John Wick blueprint, but unfortunately, Love Hurts fails to live up to its awesome potential. Granted, it’s not nearly as bad as its abysmal Rotten Tomatoes score (as of this writing, it’s at 19%) might suggest, but it’s not particularly good either. It’s a mixed bag at best, so let’s start with what this film gets right.

I said before that Love Hurts features one of my favorite actors in the world, and as you might’ve guessed, that guy is Ke Huy Quan. Like most people, I first saw him in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The Goonies, and I’ve loved him ever since. He exudes a wholesome charm that’s nearly impossible to resist, so whenever I hear his name attached to a project, it immediately catches my attention. You just know he’s going to be an absolute joy to watch, and to the surprise of no one, he knocks it out of the part in this role as well.

Quan plays Marvin, and he absolutely nails both sides of the character. As the unassuming realtor, he looks and acts like the epitome of middle-class normality, and he makes you believe that he really does enjoy his job and his peaceful life. You almost forget that his character is a world-class fighter, but when he has to unleash the assassin buried deep inside, there’s no doubt that he’s one of the most dangerous men on the planet.

Ke Huy Quan is a fantastic martial artist, and he pulls off his moves with an effortless grace that’s almost mesmerizing at times. He executes his kicks and punches with perfect form and timing, so if you’re a fan of martial arts action, you’re going to enjoy most of the fights in Love Hurts. They’re often beautiful works of art in their own right, but even here, the movie leaves a bit to be desired at times.

Most notably, there are a couple of scenes where the actors focus so much on each individual step in the choreography that the whole thing looks a bit stiff. These brawls feel more like pre-planned dances than naturally flowing fights, so they diminish the authenticity of the experience.

There are also a few moments when you can tell the actors are holding back so they don’t hurt each other, but thankfully, all of these issues disappear in the most important fight of all. The final battle between Marvin and Alvin’s goons takes up the last ten minutes or so of the film, and for my money, it’s the best part of the entire movie. It’s almost nonstop action once Marvin steps into the frame, and it’s executed flawlessly. It ensures that your impression of the fights in Love Hurts ends up being pretty positive, but unfortunately, that’s all I can say about it.

See, as much as I love great action, a film can’t get by on fight scenes alone. The story has to be good as well, but Love Hurts stumbles pretty badly on that front. To be fair, the basic plot of an elite assassin being pulled back into his former life isn’t bad, but the movie tries to add some love stories on top of that bare-bones premise. And sadly, they don’t work. At all.

For example, there’s a character who falls head over heels for one of Alvin’s cronies after reading his poetry, and if you ask me, that whole concept is just ludicrous. Similarly, Marvin himself gets a love interest–Rose, the woman who kickstarts this entire plot–and their relationship is equally unconvincing. The characters simply don’t have enough chemistry to fuel a budding romance, so every time the movie brings it up, their relationship feels forced and unnatural.

Unfortunately, those love stories (especially Marvin and Rose’s) are the real heart and soul of Love Hurts. Everything else about the film is meant to feed into that ineffective garbage, so as fun as the action is, I can’t say that I enjoyed this movie overall. The bad ends up outweighing the good by a significant margin, so unless you just want to see a bunch of cool action and you don’t care about the rest of the film, I suggest giving this one a pass.