This past Friday marked the first screening of “Love Hurts,” starring Ke Huy Quan—an actor whose name you might remember from his role in “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once.” In this movie, Quan plays Marvin, a former hit-man turned real-estate agent who is forced to confront his past after he notices weird graffiti on his billboards and receives a mysterious Valentine’s letter from someone named Rose, played by Ariana Debose.
Shortly after receiving this letter, he is ambushed in his office by “The Raven,” a poetry-writing mercenary apparently hired by Marvin’s brother to find out the true whereabouts of Rose. Even after repeated attempts to escape and deny any connection with Rose, the Raven persists in his attempts to torture the confession out of him (punctuated with dramatic poetry verses, of course). This eventually culminates in a fight reminiscent of 70s and 80s Jackie Chan movies, as the martial arts mixes with creative uses of pens, chairs, and other everyday objects to create an action-packed scene interspersed with comedy. The Raven is eventually knocked out, and Marvin is left with a bloody hand.
As he prepares to leave the office, however, he is caught by Cliff—a fellow realtor who appears to have been a mentor for Marvin during his early career as a real estate agent—who congratulates him on winning Regional Realtor of the Year. Marvin graciously, if a bit emotionally, accepts the plaque and also asks to borrow Cliff’s car.
As Marvin drives out of the office, we see another two mercenaries staking out Marvin outside, who shortly follow him to his house. Marvin cautiously enters his house, carefully carrying his plaque as he walks toward a piece of amethyst and grabs it, reminiscing for a short while. At that time, we see one of the mercenaries point a gun at Marvin and scream an obscenity, only to shortly have that same amethyst thrown directly at his forehead, leading him to miss.
Marvin tries to escape from the back door of the house, only to be accosted by the other mercenary and then subsequently restrained. After some light-hearted banter, Another fight scene, involving various kitchen appliances and office tools then ensues again, where it is clear that Marvin is getting very seriously injured. Luckily, after entering his backyard and knocking out one of the hitmen with a garden gnome and…the other with a knife, he jumps over many, and I mean many, fences to safety. Before he can reach his car, however, a mysterious woman walks up to him and tasers him unconscious. This is rounding out to be a pretty bad Valentine’s Day so far, if you ask me.
Marvin wakes up in a strip club after his assistant tried to call him after finding an unconscious Raven in his office. He finds Rose tending the bar, and asks her why she “didn’t stay dead.” Rose responds that “Hiding isn’t living,” and that she wants retribution.
Marvin agrees to help her, after being convinced by Rose that he cannot fully leave his past behind if his brother continues to chase him now that he knows Rose is alive. He drives her to the house he was showing at the beginning of the film, only to be met with a former colleague of his, who is bloody, beaten, and duct-taped to a chair. Rose lets Marvin know that “Kippy,” who is this unfortunate colleague, is their trump card.
After cutting off one of his fingers, Kippy lets the whole truth slip. Essentially, Rose used ot be Marvin’s brother’s, Alvin, right-hand man. In a coup de grace, three other gang members steal four million dollars from Alvin and hide two million in the trunk of Rose’s car. After an anonymous tip, Rose was sentenced to death for stealing—and this sentence was supposed to be carried out by Marvin. As the audience soon finds out, however, Marvin did not complete his job. In fact, the only reason he took it was to ensure that Rose would still be alive. Why? Well it appears our protagonist appears to be smitten with her. Rose leaves the room subsequently, apparently satisfied with that answer.
On the other side of town, Cliff shows up at Marvin’s door and finds the…living room and kitchen. Just as he walks in, Alvin walks down the stairs with a henchman and reveals Marvin’s horrific past. After a short conversation, Alvin stabs a metal straw (which he had used to drink bubble tea) through Cliff’s skull. Back at Marvin’s office, just as Marvin’s assistant prepares her voicemail of resignation (taking inspiration from the Raven’s poems), the Raven unexpectedly wakes up).
Marvin expectedly has a fitful sleep and goes downstairs in the morning to give painkillers to the tied-up Kippy. After Kippy offers a hush-money deal in bad taste, Marvin prepares to grievously injure him but is interrupted by the doorbell. A couple who has previously seen the house now wants to buy. Marvin calls his assistant to retrieve papers from his office, not knowing that she is being held captive by the Raven. At some point, Kippy escapes and informs Alvin’s lackeys of Marvin’s location. The other two mercenaries from the beginning of the movie were now preparing for their next big attack, and it also appears that Rose has disappeared.
What follows is another well-choreographed fight where the two mercenaries enter guns a-blazing, and the Raven and Marvin enter into a temporary alliance to…After incapacitating them, Marvin and the Raven waste no time in continuing their own conflict before being ultimately stopped by his assistant, who appears to have fallen for the Raven.
Marvin hears the echo of what he tells his assistant at the beginning of the movie, to “choose what she loves,” and he leaves the house in search of Rose, finding her at the front store of his brother’s black market enterprise massively overpowered in terms of firepower and physical power.
Luckily, through sheer determination, luck, and plot armour, Marvin is able to kill everyone with some help from Rose, after which he faces his brother one-on-one in the main office. You know the drill, cue emotional fight scene using props from the environment, which ultimately ends in Marvin on top, just short of dealing the finishing blow.
Just as he leaves to find Rose back outside, he is ambushed by his brother once again, but not before Rose is able to shoot him down, stopping him once and for all. She then reveals the rest of her plan—she was able to compile irrefutable proof that Alvin was skimming money from business transactions with the Russian mob. By gifting Kippy’s finger to them, she also allowed them into Alvin’s personal financial accounts to further seal her credibility. The movie ends with the Russians blasting into the store, taking Alvin away and thanking Rose for her information, and Rose and Alvin sharing a kiss to celebrate their new civilian lives.
Overall, the movie did not break new ground, but that was something I found to work to its benefit. It was a homage and call back to the action comedies of Jackie Chan, with a light-hearted romantic twist just in time for Valentine’s Day. The plot was simple, the themes were simple, the gags have been done many times before, but for those wanting a short light-hearted feel-good movie to watch with their significant other this Feb. 14th, the movie is outmatched.
Ke Huy Quan’s natural charisma shines through the screen, and the action scenes were insanely well done, maintaining the perfect level of tension throughout as it was oftentimes unclear who would actually win the fight.
I am also a sucker for any story that has a large, scary criminal organization working in the underbelly of society. I am also a sucker for movies that have normal suburban people get roped back into their dark criminal past. It’s a cliche, but a damned good one.
Through a purely literary lens, this movie probably fails in every regard. Through a mindless entertainment lens? Easily a ⅘ stars, and a shining recommendation from Imprint’s Senior Editor. For all those interested, get your tickets here!
