Written by: Matthew Murray, Josh Stoddard, Luke Passmore
Starring: Ke Huy Quan, Ariana DeBose, Daniel Wu, Mustafa Shakir, Lio Tipton, Cam Gigandet
Rating: [1.5/5]
Sometimes you cannot help but find yourself rooting for someone to succeed. This can be for any host of reasons, but no one has quite developed a level of sympathy and admiration for his story like Ke Huy Quan. One would hope that him receiving a lead role in a project following his Academy Award-winning performance would lead to good results, but Love Hurts massively fails in this endeavor.
Maintaining a positive attitude at all times and thriving as a realtor, Marvin (Ke Huy Quan) has consistently remained a positive force for those all around him. When he receives a letter from someone from his past, he encounters visits from individuals who want to take him out because of some unfinished business. This will require him to dig deep in the skills he has used in the past to get out of this mess.
Following the massive success of his performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once, it’s hard to not want the best for Ke Huy Quan as the role reintroduced the world to his talent. We could only hope more roles would come his way that could help continue to raise his stardom or at least present opportunities for him to continue to display everything he can do in front of the screen. It’s almost an insult to believe he would receive such a script, but it’s also a bit disheartening he saw this project as something viable for him to take on, seeing as Love Hurts sits firmly amongst a large pile of lackluster action films.
In a way, Marvin as a character fits what Ke Huy Quan represents, someone with an affable demeanor but can fight off enemies in a moment’s notice. Unfortunately, this all happens with a terrible script and, barring a few decent fight sequences, some terrible direction as well. It only further makes sense how somehow Ariana DeBose also chose to star in this film. These two seemingly have chosen to follow the same paths following their Oscar victories. Each for supporting actor, each for roles where they were the undeniable frontrunner the entire time and with such a bright future ahead of them. Ever since DeBose’s victory, she has appeared in a gauntlet of horrific films that makes you question if she should have even won for her role in West Side Story. Them both appearing in this film feels ominous.
It’s not as if these two perform terribly here, but rather, they both chose a story that has absolutely no juice whatsoever. In fact, there’s nothing here at all. No real story of substance, no characters with any real matter, nor characters that have any semblance of chemistry between them. When you discover Marvin and DeBose’s character, Rose, are meant to have a romantic connection with each other, it left me completely aghast. Whatever they had in the script did not carry through, and I know each of these actors has the capability of demonstrating chemistry with co-stars.
The one saving grace for this film lies in the fight choreography. We saw Ke Huy Quan deliver on this front in his last film, and if I were to wager, this ultimately served as the selling point of the film for the actor, granting him the opportunity to show off in various action sequences. These scenes admittedly did work with several sequences mixing and matching the action and comedy of this character’s circumstance. Reluctant fighting operates as its own form of fight choreography and, when done well, can drive home the entertainment within the film. Unfortunately, for Love Hurts, it’s but a small portion of an overly substandard production.
For all of the harshness in the review for this film, it sits in a somewhat interesting position. It has all of the makings of a film that was always destined for this level of quality but somehow brought together this cast that includes recent Academy Award winners to bring it some notoriety from the start, only to flash a bigger microscope on an ill-fated film from the start. An unfortunate reality we see play out in real time as no one walks away from this unscathed, and hopefully everyone involved goes on to better projects.
Films with Josh 
