REVIEW: Love Hurts (2025)

Movies

Love Hurts is the most frustrating kind of movie: the kind that has flashes of greatness, like a much better film is trying to break out of the box it’s been shut in. You can feel the usual 87North traits, the consistent themes that make it a much better movie than the trailer hints at, the characters with arcs and personalities that feel real despite the heightened tone, the subtle hints of what everyone is feeling. But this time, it doesn’t come together, and Love Hurts is no John Wick, Violent Night, Bullet Train, or even The Fall Guy. The main culprit is the short run time, but it gets some other things wrong as well.

Marvin Gable (Ke Huy Quan) is a sunny, optimistic realtor who loves his job, loves his fairly banal life, and loves trying to get other people to love theirs. But one Valentine’s Day, Marvin receives a Valentine from Rose (Ariana DeBose), a woman he once loved, and suddenly, his past comes crashing into his new world – a past where he was a deadly enforcer for his brother’s money-laundering crime ring. He left for love, and now, he may have to get back in for the same reason.

The bad guy who went good for a girl is a tale as old as time for a reason – it works, and it works because it resonates. How many people have changed a not-so-positive part of themselves for love? Maybe not a lot of former mob heavies, but there are certainly people who’ve stopped drinking too much or gambling or doing other destructive things to be a better person for someone they love, and that’s why fairy tales (in whatever form they take, be it Lord of the Rings, Beauty and the Beast, or Die Hard) can make us see truths in the fantastical. The rub is that, for the story to work, you have to make the audience believe the romance, and that’s the biggest problem with Love Hurts. At no point does this film try to make you understand why Marvin loves Rose or even just make you feel it. There’s exactly one flashback to Marvin’s time with Rose, and they barely speak to each other. In the present, they share plenty of scenes, but not only is there zero chemistry between the actors but there’s no sense of love or longing. What was it about Rose that made Marvin walk away from his life? We don’t know, and Love Hurts seems uninterested in details like that anyway.

The love story is also set adrift because it’s not Marvin’s sole motivation. The other side of Love Hurts is Marvin’s distaste for his violent past and desire to live a normal life doing something as mundane as selling houses to yuppies. That’s a fine character motivation as well, but which is it? The movie can’t decide, and because there are conflicting motivations, the love story is undercooked. The latter explanation for his conflict would have been better, considering how little time is spent on the romance between Marvin and Rose. And time is maybe the biggest factor; Love Hurts is less than 90 minutes long, almost like the filmmakers were in a rush to get through it, so there’s no time to establish the romance adequately. The Fall Guy may have some dumb plot points, but you believe that the leads love each other; hell, a goofy subplot about one of Marvin’s would-be killers having a spat with his wife is more believable than his love for Rose. It feels like the writers were determined to stick to the Valentine’s Day love theme, so they forced a romance where it wasn’t needed instead of allowing the film to be about a guy whose past comes back to haunt him and leaving their 82-minute movie at that.

It’s a shame because there are some excellent moments throughout Love Hurts that show what it could have been with a little more care. A scene where Marvin’s boss and realty mentor, played by Sean Astin, perfectly reflects the conflict he’s feeling. The boss presents Marvin with an award and talks about how far he’s come, what a wonderful realtor he is, and how proud they all are of him, and as Martin smiles, he looks down at his hand, which has a bleeding wound from a recent knife fight, and you can see the doubt on his face as he wonders if the new life he loves so much is a lie. Astin also has a later scene with another character that establishes the turmoil in Marvin’s heart without Marvin even being there. There’s another unexpected character pairing that seems silly at first but ends up giving two people unexpected depth and even arcs. Marvin’s conflict with his brother is full of tension and hurt feelings, and it deserves more screen time than it gets. And the action scenes are very good, full of the kind of hits and slices that make you wince despite the zanier aspects of the choreography. A few nips and tucks, plus a few expansions, and Love Hurts could have been another 87North gem.

The pros and cons of Love Hurts are reflected in the performances. Ke Huy Quan is great in the fight scenes (the Alamo Drafthouse played some clips from a couple of martial arts flicks he filmed in the past before the movie started, and he knows his stuff), and he’s excellent in the moments where he talks about his life and his past, whether he’s being super positive or doubting himself, but the romantic moments never hit despite him giving it his best shot. Part of that may be on the object of his affection; Ariana DeBose is okay as Rose (aside from not having any chemistry with Quan), but the character has almost nothing to her. She dispenses platitudes and feels like someone in control, but that’s about it. Another reason the romance feels so tacked on is that the movie would have been better without Rose. Much better is Lio Tipton as Ashley, Marvin’s assistant at the realty company; she’s the picture of an adrift millennial in the beginning, someone Marvin is desperate to save from her self-induced depression, but she has a nice journey through the film, and what seemed like an extraneous character becomes essential – and would have been even more so if Love Hurts were more focused on the stronger theme. Daniel Wu is also great as Alvin “Knuckles” Gable, Marvin’s evil brother; he isn’t around much, but he feels like a larger-than-life character, believable as a villain and the kind of overwhelming force Marvin can’t escape. The lesser bad guys aren’t as good; Cam Gigante (who was in Violent Night) is Knuckles’ second-in-command, and André Eriksen (also in Violent Night, where he was a much better heavy) and former football player Marshawn Lynch are his henchmen, and they’re too silly to feel menacing. On the other hand, Mustafa Shakir plays an assassin called Raven, and he’s terrific; he feels like a real threat, and he’s more human than you expect. Again, with some changes, this could have been a great little action movie.

Love Hurts needed more time, more focus, and fewer themes, plot points, and characters. In its current state, it’s a mess with some great moments and scenes, a few winning performances, and entertaining action sequences.

***

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