Love Hurts

3 outta 5

Love Hurts is a straightforward action romp that gets by on some zippy and messy action scenes and a likable lead. It is sort of rudimentary in its plot, the cliché of a gaggle of elite assassins with each more deadly and quirky than the next is worn out, and the unsuspecting everyman who turns out to be a deadly assassin has been done a lot lately with Nobody and John Wick. But just because it has been done before doesn’t mean it still can’t be fun to watch. Also, it has one of the Property Brothers playing a small role as a rival realtor and he gets shot in the head! So that has to count for something.

Friendly neighbourhood realtor Marvin (Ke Huy Quan) is enjoying his career, even being given an award for all his hard work from his boss, Cliff (Sean Astin), although Marvin’s assistant, Ashely (Lio Tipton) is over their job. Frustratingly he is competing against another realtor, Jeff (Drew Scott, the aforementioned Property Brother), and someone keeps defacing Marvin’s realtor posters. It turns out that the culprit is Rose (Ariana DeBose), a former criminal associate of Marvin. Marvin used to be an assassin for his crime lord brother, Alvin “Knuckles” (Daniel Wu) and his brother is on the hunt for Marvin and Rose. Soon Marvin is attacked by deadly assassins like the poetry loving Raven (Mustafa Shakir), or King (Marshawn “Beastmode” Lynch) and Otis (André Eriksen). Marvin just wants to live his normal life but his vengeful and violent brother won’t let him leave.

The action movie trope of normal guy turns out to have hidden skills of mayhem is not a new idea. It’s just that especially after the success of movies like John Wick and Nobody that particular plot twist doesn’t hit as hard. What gives it a pass is having Ke Huy Quan play the role. He has a meek looking frame but his unexpected rapid fire fighting moves are a shocker. When he is running away from the assassins and jumping over fences, King just looks at him and snarls “that little spider-monkey”. Quan has an incredibly expressive face and seeing him react to the sudden bursts of violence, or how he is surprised when he takes someone down, is incredibly entertaining. But he still loves his realtor life like when in the middle of all the chaos he wants to sell a house to a couple. He is great as showing the emotional pathos of a guy who just wants to live his normal life, but his nefarious brother draws him back. And the slow burn of him going from nice guy to righteous ass kicker is very fun.

There is some really noticeable ADR (Additional Dialogue Recording) in the film with tons of lines of dialogue as people’s heads are back to the camera. It gets distracting like when Marvin and Knuckles talk about some serious stuff and it’s all the back of their heads. There is even some first-person voiceover narration of the characters expressing their innermost thoughts. It kind of makes sense for Marvin as the main character but even Rose gets voice over thinking about what Marvin is going to do. These awkward voiceovers end up making the film feel a little slapped together/ amateur hour when it’s not about action or just Marvin being likable and kicking ass.

The action in the film visceral and feels hard hitting. There are a lot of cool shots where you can see the action, and nifty visual bits like the camera inside a refrigerator that opens and shuts as people get slammed inside of it. Throughout the fight, Marvin is holding onto his Best Realtor plaque and using it as a weapon, which seems like an important plot point but it turns out he just really likes his Best Realtor plaque. Shakir plays the poetry reading Raven as introspective, and Marvin’s assistant, Ashely immediately falls in love with him and Tipton brings some weird energy. Probably the most entertaining assassins are King and Ottis. Eriksen as Ottis keeps trying to reconcile with his significant other, which makes for a fun contrast to the violence. And former NFL’er Lynch (full on using “Beastmode” in his credited name) gets to run full bore at Quan like in his NFL days. When Scott the Property Brother shows up there is a long buildup of him revving up Marvin to fight and then he gets graphically shot in the head, which is pretty funny. As the villainous baddie, Wu gets in a bit where he torments Sean Astin which makes him instantly hateable (nobody should be allowed to harm Samwise Gamgee!), and the showdown between Knuckles and Marvin is dramatic, even with all the bad ADR. DeBose as Rose just sort of glowers and says that Marvin shouldn’t be hiding but she does get in a good twist at the end.

A lot of Love Hurts may be cobbled together from other, better movies, but this gets by on the pep of Quan’s performance and the kinetic slap of the action. Also, it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome at barely an hour and 20 minutes. Sure, they apparently had to redub a lot of dialogue to patch over all the stuff they cut, but the movie flies by for a nicely violent yet heartfelt good time.