LOVE HURTS (2025)
Starring Ke Huy Quan, Ariana DeBose, Daniel Wu, Marshawn Lynch, Mustafa Shakir, Lio Tipton, Rhys Darby, André Eriksen, Sean Astin, Cam Gigandet, Drew Scott, Stephanie Sy, Adam Hurtig, Liam Stewart-Kanigan, Yoko Hamamura, Rawleigh Clements, David MacInnis, Phong Giang, Diana Botelho-Urbanski and Polina Gulijeva.
Screenplay by Matthew Murray & Josh Stoddard and Luke Passmore.
Directed by Jonathan Eusebio.
Distributed by Universal Pictures. 83 minutes. Rated R.
Ke Huy Quan is so likable and has such a fascinating story that you want to root for him. After all, he became well known as a child actor, getting his first exposure as one of the leads in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1984. Of course, he was playing perhaps the most annoying character in what is arguably the worst of the Indiana Jones movies. Still, he was a 12-year-old actor thrown into one of the biggest films of the year with one of the most iconic directors of the last 50 years – I doubt that he had much say in how he played Short Round. (See, even his character name was annoying…)
A year later, he struck gold again part of the kid ensemble of the popular 1985 adventure film The Goonies. However, as so often happens with child stars, the roles started to wither away as he hit puberty. He worked periodically for about a decade after Goonies – probably his most memorable roles were a supporting character in the Pauly Shore/Brendan Fraser comedy Encino Man and a regular supporting gig on the last two seasons of the past-popular sitcom Head of the Class. After 1996, he did not act on television and film in Hollywood for decades, although he did take a supporting part in a 2002 Hong Kong film called Second Time Around.
This is what made it all the more intriguing that he made his comeback a couple of years ago, taking a role in an obscure absurdist comedy called Everything Everywhere All at Once which became a critical and popular darling. In fact, the movie was named Best Picture in 2023, and Ke Huy Quan won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role.
Ke Huy Quan isn’t the only Oscar recipient in the new action-comedy Love Hurts. His love interest in this film is played by Ariana DeBose, who recently won Best Supporting Actress for her role in Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story. She played Maria’s best friend Anita, the same role Rita Moreno played in the original version.
Watching Love Hurts, I couldn’t help but think: They are following up their Oscar-winning performances with this???
This is a slick but dumb and insanely violent romantic action comedy. In fact, the advertising for Love Hurts says that it is by the makers of Nobody – which sort of makes sense because it’s got the exact same concept.
Not that this is the most unique concept out there. Quan plays Marvin Gable, a spectacularly dorky real estate salesperson who apparently used to be a professional killer. When his past catches up with him, Marvin must fall back on his old skills to survive, eventually singlehandedly taking out dozens of trained assassins.
He is drawn back in to the life by Rose (DeBose), a long-time crush that Marvin was supposed to have killed, but he allowed her to escape. Years later, Marvin still has a thing for Rose (even though he has to be at least 20 years older than her) and when she returns to stir things up with the local mob, he is drawn into the fight.
I don’t know what it says about the current state of romance, the fact that leading into Valentine’s Day, the two “date” movies being released are this and Heart Eyes, two films which try to conflate love and extreme violence. I’m not sure, but I’m guessing that it isn’t a good thing.
The constant… CONSTANT… violent mayhem totally overwhelms whatever romantic vibes that Love Hurts is able to stoke, and Marvin’s complete indestructibility eventually gets kind of annoying. Any real person would have died from at least several of the injuries he sustains.
Its insanely short run-time of 83 minutes means that Love Hurts doesn’t exactly wear out its welcome but I’m not sure I’d call it time well spent, either.
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2025 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: February 7, 2025.
Comments