“Love Hurts” runs a mere 83 minutes, but that word “mere” can be so misleading! The minutes fly like months. Or a triple bill of “The Brutalist,” the Kenneth Branagh “Hamlet” and the seven-hour 1968 film version of “War and Peace.” On an empty stomach.
It’s such a drag to see Ke Huy Quan undermined so persistently by the script and the role handing him his first lead in a movie. Here, coming off his recent Oscar-winning turn in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” he plays Marvin, a sweet-natured Milwaukee real estate agent hiding a vicious criminal past.
Quan has his moments, and with this script, believe me, they’re his, not the script’s. But first-time feature director Jonathan Eusebio, who comes from the stunt world, can do only so much to resolve the material’s irreconcilable differences. The brutality isn’t funny, even when it’s played for laughs. The jokes return the favor; they’re brutally witless, when they can be bothered to show up.
Marvin’s snake of a drug lord brother, Knuckles (Daniel Wu), has a score to settle: His outfit’s legal eagle, Rose (Ariana DeBose), has stolen from him, though the money belongs to Russian overlords who make an 11th-hour appearance. Rose was supposed to be dead, but as we see in flashbacks, Marvin 1.0 — the years-ago assassin version — didn’t have the heart to pull the trigger. He loves her, and the 2.0 Marvin, the sunny real estate pro, knows that sparing her life could one day cost him his own.
Most of “Love Hurts” confines its action to either a real estate office, the blandest of suburban cul-de-sacs (the movie was filmed in Winnipeg) or the shady video game arcade fronting for the drug dealer’s activities. It should be sort of funny to stage duels to the death, with various blades and bullets and makeshift weapons flying around, in the middle of one of Marvin’s house showings. And it’s a little funny in theory to have Marvin’s dour assistant (Lio Tipton) instantly fall for the sensitive assassin-poet (Mustafa Shakir) shaking down her boss for information regarding Rose’s whereabouts.
Theory, schmeary. “Love Hurts” cannot make tonal sense of its eye-stabbing, body-crushing violence, even in the context of a black comedy. Quan is a goodwill machine through it all, and his on-screen reunion with his old “Goonies” cohort Sean Astin (who plays his kindly boss) offers a crumb of nostalgia. Marshawn Lynch adds a relaxed vibe to the general strain as one of Marvin’s would-be assailants.
Meantime there’s DeBose, the triple-threat “West Side Story” Oscar winner, fighting her own battles with a role that oscillates like mad, changing tones and intentions willy-nilly. A few multiplex cycles ago, DeBose was stuck playing guessing games with her supporting role in “Kraven the Hunter.” Here she gliding through her second cryptically alluring lawyer fatale in as many months. At times in “Love Hurts” she appears to be pondering the question so many genuine talents before her, across movie history, have pondered in difficult circumstances: Should I take a barely motivated … pause right there in the … middle of a line since there’s nothing very interesting in what I’m saying or would that just slow things … down?
“Love Hurts” — 1.5 stars (out of 4)
MPA rating: R (for strong/bloody violence and language throughout)
Running time: 1:23
How to watch: Premieres in theaters Feb. 7
Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.
As a sunny real estate agent with a lethal past, the star of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” is a goodwill machine in “Love Hurts.” The movie itself? No sale.
“Love Hurts” runs a mere 83 minutes, but that word “mere” can be so misleading! The minutes fly like months. Or a triple bill of “The Brutalist,” the Kenneth Branagh “Hamlet” and the seven-hour 1968 film version of “War and Peace.” On an empty stomach.
It’s such a drag to see Ke Huy Quan undermined so persistently by the script and the role handing him his first lead in a movie. Here, coming off his recent Oscar-winning turn in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” he plays Marvin, a sweet-natured Milwaukee real estate agent hiding a vicious criminal past.
Quan has his moments, and with this script, believe me, they’re his, not the script’s. But first-time feature director Jonathan Eusebio, who comes from the stunt world, can do only so much to resolve the material’s irreconcilable differences. The brutality isn’t funny, even when it’s played for laughs. The jokes return the favor; they’re brutally witless, when they can be bothered to show up.
Marvin’s snake of a drug lord brother, Knuckles (Daniel Wu), has a score to settle: His outfit’s legal eagle, Rose (Ariana DeBose), has stolen from him, though the money belongs to Russian overlords who make an 11th-hour appearance. Rose was supposed to be dead, but as we see in flashbacks, Marvin 1.0 — the years-ago assassin version — didn’t have the heart to pull the trigger. He loves her, and the 2.0 Marvin, the sunny real estate pro, knows that sparing her life could one day cost him his own.
Most of “Love Hurts” confines its action to either a real estate office, the blandest of suburban cul-de-sacs (the movie was filmed in Winnipeg) or the shady video game arcade fronting for the drug dealer’s activities. It should be sort of funny to stage duels to the death, with various blades and bullets and makeshift weapons flying around, in the middle of one of Marvin’s house showings. And it’s a little funny in theory to have Marvin’s dour assistant (Lio Tipton) instantly fall for the sensitive assassin-poet (Mustafa Shakir) shaking down her boss for information regarding Rose’s whereabouts.
Theory, schmeary. “Love Hurts” cannot make tonal sense of its eye-stabbing, body-crushing violence, even in the context of a black comedy. Quan is a goodwill machine through it all, and his on-screen reunion with his old “Goonies” cohort Sean Astin (who plays his kindly boss) offers a crumb of nostalgia. Marshawn Lynch adds a relaxed vibe to the general strain as one of Marvin’s would-be assailants.
Meantime there’s DeBose, the triple-threat “West Side Story” Oscar winner, fighting her own battles with a role that oscillates like mad, changing tones and intentions willy-nilly. A few multiplex cycles ago, DeBose was stuck playing guessing games with her supporting role in “Kraven the Hunter.” Here she gliding through her second cryptically alluring lawyer fatale in as many months. At times in “Love Hurts” she appears to be pondering the question so many genuine talents before her, across movie history, have pondered in difficult circumstances: Should I take a barely motivated … pause right there in the … middle of a line since there’s nothing very interesting in what I’m saying or would that just slow things … down?
“Love Hurts” — 1.5 stars (out of 4)
MPA rating: R (for strong/bloody violence and language throughout)
Running time: 1:23
How to watch: Premieres in theaters Feb. 7
Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.
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