Love Hurts
Data shows romantic action-comedy is getting the Short Round shrift.
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While certainly not perfect and with its fair share of problems, the 87North production “Love Hurts” (now in theaters and currently rocking a 19 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as many would lead you to believe.
Fresh off a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” Ke Huy Quan stars Marvin Gable, a successful Milwaukee realtor with a dark past. You see Marvin used to work as an enforcer for his gangster brother Alvin (Daniel Wu of AMC’s “Into the Badlands”), but he turned his back on the family business when Alvin ordered him to kill Rose Carlisle (fellow Academy Award-winner Ariana DeBose, woefully miscast). She was Alvin’s attorney who’d been accused of stealing from him and is still the woman Marvin loves.
Lo and behold Marvin let Rose live, but when she returns to town it brings trouble to his front door. Assassin The Raven (Mustafa Shakir) shows up at Marvin’s office just as his boss Cliff Cussick (Quan’s “The Goonies” co-star Sean Astin) has bestowed a major award upon him. (No, it’s not a leg lamp … or a lamp leg as a buddy of mine goofily calls it.) Hitters King (ex-NFL running back and BIG personality Marshawn “Beastmode” Lynch) and Otis (André Eriksen, a veteran of past 87North production “Violent Night”) turn up at Marvin’s home looking for their pound of flesh at the behest of Alvin’s underling Renny Merlo (Cam Gigandet, another “Violent Night” alum).
“Love Hurts” is the debut of stuntman-turned-director Jonathan Eusebio and the proof of his background is definitely in the pudding. The fights in this thing sing. Quan, much like he showed in “Everything,” is quite the adept silver screen martial artist. Watching he and Lynch (who’s proving his funny turn in “Bottoms” was no fluke) go at one another is a joy to behold. Props to stunt coordinators Can Aydin and Dan Iaboni for their cool choreography and it’s all captured creatively by cinematographer Bridger Nielsen (he served as a second unit director of photography 87North productions “Bullet Train” and “The Fall Guy” and got a bump to the bigs here). I especially enjoyed the POV shots Nielsen employed from the perspective of household appliances such as a crockpot and a microwave.
Less successful is the script from Matthew Murray, Josh Stoddard (he wrote on the aforementioned “Into the Badlands”) and Luke Passmore, which sports a lot of dialogue that seems like it was stripped from one of those motivational posters adorning the cubicle of a colleague you don’t particularly care for. I was like, “Gee, what in the ChatGPT is this shit?!!!” Equally bad is DeBose. Sure, she’s miscast, but she’s got less than zero chemistry with Quan (who’s actually pretty good) and can’t seem to get a clear grasp on her character … this could admittedly have more to do with the script than the performer.
“Love Hurts” feels more like a Jackie Chan movie from the 1990s (kinda funny as Chan was offered Quan’s “Everything” role) than it does a “John Wick” flick and that ain’t altogether a bad thing. Come for Quan. Stay for Lynch. There’s also plenty of silenced Uzi action, the bad guy’s lair is a kung fu-themed video store and a Property Brother gets his brains blown out – these things are obviously value-added.