There’s something to be said for a studio that excels at a very specific niche. For Blumhouse, it's cranking out low-to-mid budget horror films. For Amblin, it’s crafting adventure films either for the whole family or that feel like they're from a bygone era. For 87North, the youngest of the bunch, delivers action films with an emphasis on excellent technical stunt work. This has worked well for a while, with the studio’s previous works ranging from “Nobody,” “The Fall Guy,” “Bullet Train,” “Kate,” and more. In theory, teaming up with an actor with a huge amount of stunt experience who’s recently experienced a career resurgence should be an absolute slam dunk.
“Love Hurts” follows Marvin Gable, played by Key Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “Loki”), a real estate agent who loves to emphasize positive vibes and happiness in his houses and everyday life. One day, after an attack by two goons King and Otis, played by Marshawn Lynch (“Bottoms”) and André Eriksen (“Violent Night,” “The Trip”), and a bird themed assassin named Raven, played by Mustafa Shakir (“Ghosted,” “Luke Cage”), his life is thrown into disarray when his old crush Rose, played by Ariana DeBose (“West Side Story (2021),” “Wish (2023)”), reappears to ask for him to resume his violent, hitman tendencies to help her get revenge against Marvin’s brother Knuckles, played by Daniel Wu (“Into the Badlands,” “American Born Chinese”).
On paper, everything about this film seems up to snuff. Not only does Quan have the stunt experience (before his acting resurgence, he worked on numerous productions as a stunt coordinator), his smiley, optimistic personality is a perfect fit for a film like this. He’s great, allowing the film’s differing personas for Marvin to take over his performance, resulting in a role that takes advantage of his two biggest skills. His stunt work is excellent, as is the action throughout the entire film. It does end up being some of the silliest material of 87North’s catalogue (a giant novelty spoon and fork are involved at one point) but it's still just as brutal and fluid as any of their previous works.
Unfortunately, that’s where the positives end though. The rest of the film is a pale imitation of these kinds of action flicks, and much of it is quite simply bad. Despite a runtime of under 90-minutes with credits, first-time director Jonathan Eusebio fails to amass much momentum with the story. Despite being peppered with action sequences, the actual plot is painfully boring, which then makes the actions scenes feel worse than they actually are. When the only thing separating the action scenes is a plot that you can’t get invested in, it makes those action scenes blend together. There’s a “hamster wheel” type of feeling, as if the film is just running in place.
That script also does none of the actors any favors. Co-writers Matthew Murray (“Sheltered”), Josh Stoddard (“Betas,” “Warrior (2019)”), and Luke Passmore (“Slaughterhouse Rulez,” “Archenemy (2020)”) relishes in its action movie cliches without ever expanding on them. It invites pieces of weirdness in, like the Raven and his feathered weaponry and poetry, but stops there. It’s just weird for the sake of it, without actually relating to any other vibe the film is putting out. Meanwhile the dialogue is just awful. Numerous moments of emotional pathos are ruined by truly groanworthy lines that simply drag the film down. It doesn’t help that, besides Quan, the rest of the cast feel like they’re phoning it in. Wu is a bland antagonist, Shakir plays the Raven with a grimness that feels weird against the strangeness of the character, Lynch and Eriksen feel like they’re trying to channel a Tarantino banter to minimal success, and DeBose, despite winning an Academy Award just a few years ago, delivers her lines like she’s doing a purposely bad impression of a 1960s film noir femme fatal.
Even the film’s budget is an issue by the time all is done. It makes sense that this isn’t a film that costs a hundred-million dollars, but its cheapness is most noticeable again because of the poor pacing and boredom. If the film had a decent pace, then, just like the action scenes, some of the cheapness wouldn’t be as noticeable. But every set where a fight takes place feels woefully sterile and flimsy, like it's made of paper and put together just to be destroyed. Yes, some of those fights take place inside of Gable’s “for sale” houses, but the bright lights shining through windows don’t feel like bright sun, they feel like giant stage lights from somewhere in a sound stage.
Here’s hoping that, in the next few years, Key Huy Quan can continue to capitalize on his newfound success, but that he reads the material first. “Love Hurts” certainly stings, as it manages to completely waste both its lead and the talents of its production studio. What’s good here can’t break through the monotony and what’s decent is turned into a slog because of that aforementioned monotony. “Love Hurts” quite a bit, apparently. 1.5/5
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