“Reservoir Dogs” unleashed a crush of Quentin Tarantino copycats in the 1990s.
The films looked cool and stylish, but they lacked Tarantino’s boundless skill set. And it showed. Boy, did it ever.
Now, the producers behind “Nobody” are trying to duplicate that sleeper hit with another tale of an ex-killer lured back into action.
Nothing doing.
“Love Hurts” asks Ke Huy Quan to play an amiable Realtor with a dark past, but the wafer-thin screenplay lets him and his co-stars down.
Quan plays Marvin Gable, a mild-mannered Realtor who bakes cookies and treats his job like a gift from above. He’s kind and courteous, the kind of boss everyone would love to have.
Turns out Marvin’s past isn’t so cookie-cutter perfect. His evil brother Knuckles (Daniel Wu) wants to terminate Marvin’s old flame Rose (Ariana DeBose, in her second dud following “Kraven the Hunter“). It’s up to Marvin to stop him, all the while keeping up his Realtor facade.
Three screenwriters burned more calories coming up with cool names than developing a story or characters. Everything here is one-note or less, with actors repeating thoughts that hardly keep our interest.
Yes, we know that Knuckles will kill anyone who steals his money. Isn’t that Gangster 101 anyway?
“Nobody” hid the main character’s violent past for as long as possible. It gave the film a jolt when we learned Bob Odenkirk could take out the trash like 007.
Here, Marvin’s “reveal” happens early on, taking some air out of the story. And there’s precious little Oxygen remaining.
View this post on Instagram
A bizarre love connection between Marvin’s assistant (Leo Tipton) and a Knuckles thug named The Raven (Mustafa Shakir, a bright spot) is so dumb it demands some Ibuprofen. The rest of the story is no better.
The Marvin-Rose bond may have the least romantic chemistry ever seen on screen. They might as well be strangers who met on the subway. Give these actors something to do!
Quan ís perfectly cast as a nebbish who harbors a violent streak. Even that isn’t played out effectively. Why not show the reasons why Marvin succumbed to his darker impulses for so long?
Director Jonathan Eusebio’s stunt coordinator past helps paper over some flaws. The action is frantic and steady, and some of the set pieces are fun to watch. That proves less so over time, and “Love Hurts” wraps in a welcome 83 minutes.
So why does it feel like an endurance test to watch?
We’ve become numb to bravura action scenes, which isn’t “Love Hurts'” fault. We just expect a little more now, and the film can’t deliver.
It’s cheeky to see Marvin go all out to protect a framed Realtor award, but it also makes a deeply silly film more ludicrous. Even the wackiest action comedies have a kernel of reality to them, another element “Love Hurts” lacks.
Join Oscar-winner Ke Huy Quan at his imprint ceremony at @ChineseTheatres in Hollywood, California.
Ke Huy makes his comeback to the big screen at the premiere of Love Hurts, where he stars as a realtor who reunites with his former partner-in-crime for one last dance… pic.twitter.com/39XcyfnMgt
— TCL (@TCL_Brand) February 6, 2025
Rhys Darby and Sean Astin show up briefly but make little impact. Both try their best, but there’s so little to work with in a story that wheezes to a final, predictable showdown.
Quan’s Hollywood comeback capped with a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” What a wonderful story, one worthy of a film all its own.
He deserves a better follow-up vehicle than this.
HiT or Miss: “Love Hurts” is a mess, a violent mashup of would-be comic bits that goes nowhere fast.
The post ‘Love Hurts’ (But Not As Much As This Movie) appeared first on Hollywood in Toto.
0 Comments