Love Hurts (2025): Movie Review
Ke Huy Quan's new action film is an unfortunate misfire on nearly every level
Walking out of the theater after my showing of Love Hurts, I was just truly baffled by how much every aspect of the film fails on multiple levels, that it makes some of the weakest action films we’ve been getting as of recent (Violent Night 2022, Bullet train 2022) look like impeccably crafted films of the genre in comparison. Whether it's the romance, humor, or even a lot of the surprisingly sparse feeling actual action sequences it all truly feels like an utter waste of the true talent that is this cast, especially now Oscar-winner, Ke Huy Quan. He stars in one of his only lead roles (but not his first) as Marvin Gable a realtor living a nice, quiet, and rather tame life when he’s suddenly pulled back into the world of crime that he left behind after his former partner-in-crime Rose (Ariana DeBose) resurfaces, leaving ominous messages in the form of valentines sent to him. He now must re-team with her to finally come face to face with their past in the form of Marvin’s brother Alvin ‘Knuckles’ Gable (Daniel Wu).
When it comes to dissecting the main problems with why Love Hurts feels like it just fundamentally at its core doesn’t work, we can go right back to that quick plot synopsis in that somehow the film is simultaneously way too familiar to other action films but also being such an incredibly jumbled mess on a plot level that it feels incoherent as a film. The entire, troubled past our protagonist now must face isn’t even just only similar to John Wick, this type of archetype has been tackled in the vast majority of past action flicks even before Keanu’s films hit the screens, but even then I wouldn’t have a problem with that if there were literally anything else to latch onto here that the movie either completely blasts by or misses the mark on so severely. The romantic seeds attempted to be set up between Marvin and Rose are utterly non-existent. The most we feels like we get is the occasional thought or inner monologue of Marvin directly telling the audience he loves her even though were just never shown why they would have an affinity for each other at all. Even in the backstory of why Marvin left the life of crime behind where one would think we would get that we don't, were truly only shown and told that he didn't know her but also did not want to carry out his brother’s command of killing Rose so he faked her death so she would be free of the burden. There’s something potentially there but the film never goes to the lengths to show us this at all. It isn’t helped very much at all either by the fact that Ariana DeBose unfortunately yet again gives absolutely nothing to her performance here, her line deliveries feel as stiff as a wooden board which seems to be becoming a common occurrence.
A lot of the jokes here are truly in one ear and out the other, but honestly, it wouldn't feel as obnoxious if there maybe were just fewer characters in the story so the film at least wouldn’t be as incredibly cluttered as is. Marshawn Lynch, Lio Tipton, André Eriksen, Cam Gigandet (their character names really don’t matter), and even Sean Astin in a Goonies reunion cameo appearance all are in service to make the film feel more comedic but all of it falls flat mainly because a lot of the jokes rarely feel like they’re even attempts at anything comedic and come across as more of a headache than anything. I even found the action here despite being under the prolific David Leitch and 87 North to be incredibly lackluster and weightless despite Quan’s background as a stunt coordinator, everything feels either way too rehearsed or way too fast to have any sort of real weight or stakes of any kind.Â
The many plot details of the film truly feel like an afterthought throughout the entire runtime and the film somehow seems to be completely out of gas story-wise despite being only a brief 80 minutes, you would expect at least some semblance of fast-paced high-octane fun but other than Ke Huy Quan’s naturally likable charm, there’s truly nothing to like here it fails as a Valentines Day surprise, an actioner, and just a film in general, the script truly fails on every aspect and it is undeniably starting to feel like all these types of David Leitch produced action films are being mushed together to create a type of action film that doesn’t feel recognizable in the slightest in what feels like an utter waste of true talent across the board in what turned out to be a major disappointment.