In his directorial debut, former stuntman Jonathan Eusebio directs this action comedy about mild-mannered real estate agent Marvin Gable (Ke Huy Quan), whose past as a ruthless assassin comes back to haunt him when his estranged crime-lord brother, Alvin “Knuckles” Gable (Daniel Wu), sends thugs to learn the whereabouts of Rose Carlisle (Ariana DeBose)—the woman who robbed Knuckles and who Marvin helped escape—and retrieve what she stole. (83 min.)
Glen: If you don’t think about it too hard, this fun little farce is very entertaining. Quan plays Marvin as deeply earnest, a realtor who really wants to put his clients in a house because he understands what owning your own home can mean. He rides his bike to work and wears a helmet. He bakes Valentine’s Day cookies for his clients and co-workers. He’s a corny dork with a heart of gold: a quintessential nice guy. So when confronted at his office by The Raven (Mustafa Shakir), a stone cold killer and poet, Marvin has to revert to his former life as an assassin to protect himself. I’d argue the Bob Odenkirk film Nobody (2021) fulfilled this premise better, but Love Hurts does not deserve the 18 percent critic score it has on Rotten Tomatoes. It features a lot of well-executed fight sequences, there are some genuine laughs, and it’s sort of romantic, especially between The Raven and Marvin’s unhappy administrative assistant, Ashley (Lio Tipton), who falls for The Raven by reading his poetry. Sweet, right?
Anna: I’ll watch Quan in anything. He won me over with his role in Everything Everywhere All at Once. Every bit of press I’ve seen him do and every interview leads me to think he’s just a really nice guy, not just someone who can play one. So, while it may be contrived and a bit corny, Love Hurts is fun. It’s not made for critics, and that’s OK. Marvin is the least likely dude to have an assassin backstory. He’s divorced himself of that identity in his new life as a realtor. He seems perfectly happy, but when Rose reaches out, he realizes that he’s been denying his yearning for her all along. Full of fights and with enough laughs to make the 83-minute movie fly by, it’s a good popcorn flick. There’re a few different people all hunting for Marvin and Rose, and sometimes it felt oddly difficult to keep track of who worked for who and what their motivations were, but the good news is that it doesn’t really matter if the good guys win. While Valentine’s Day is a theme, it’s really just a tool to drive the storyline. This is rom-com meets action flick in a fun way.
Glen: You have to set aside that fact that Quan looks like he couldn’t punch his way out of a paper bag, and that Marvin and Rose don’t have convincing chemistry, but hey! You get New Zealander Rhys Darby as a shifty accountant, Sean Astin as Marvin’s good-natured realtor boss, and Cam Gigandet, who makes such a great bad guy. Every time I see him in a movie, I loathe him. Fun is the operative descriptor here.
Anna: There’re enough good actors and fun bits to keep your mind off the fact that there are problems galore. I’m sure that being an action star was fun for Quan, and I hope he continues to get work—he’s a great everyman on-screen.
New Times Arts Editor Glen Starkey and freelancer Anna Starkey write Sun Screen. Comment at gstarkey@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Feb 13-23, 2025.