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As I write this, the Academy Awards are a few weeks away, and while I am excited for them, I must admit that I am less so than I have been the last few years.
I just haven't seen many of the nominees, and the ones I've seen and enjoyed seem unlikely to win anything. The favorite at this point is a three-and-a-half hour slog of a movie, and the last time I sat through a Best Picture nominee that long (Killers Of The Flower Moon), I certainly did not feel rewarded for my time.
The reason I bring up the Oscars is that today's article centers on not just a former Oscar winner, but one of the best Oscar winners of all-time; a winner whose acceptance speech was full of enthusiasm and heart and genuine emotion. And that's what I want to see from my winners. Hopefully we get something like that this year.
Anyway, Love Hurts is an action-comedy that came out this weekend and stars Ke Huy Quan as Marvin Gable (I guess Barry Whiteman was taken). He is a proud real estate agent with a dark history: he used to be an enforcer in his brother's crime syndicate. But after being asked to kill the woman he loved, Marvin faked her death and left the life behind him.
Unfortunately for Marvin, that woman has come back on Valentine's Day to take revenge against the crime lord Knuckles (yes, Marvin's brother goes by the name Knuckles), and she is enlisting Marvin's help to get it.
Marvin has to wrestle with wanting his new life while his old one is pulling him back in. What's a guy in love to do?
TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS
+ Ke Huy Quan remains a treasure of charisma and charm. He is just so entertaining and enjoyable, and even in the moments where the movie itself isn't working, he is. If nothing else, I could always think back to his acceptance speech at the Academy Awards and be filled with the joy his greatest moment as an actor brought all of us.
He is delightful as always, and he is the shining star of this flick. The rest of the performances here are all pretty average or worse, but Quan is just so damn delightful. He's worth the price of admission all on his own.
+ Most of the action set pieces here are well-shot and well-edited. There aren't a lot of flashy, quick cuts between every movement or muscle flex; we see the action develop and get carried out. It's unfortunate that the film does not have any extended one-take action shots or a minute or longer, but to its credit, it also has relatively few cuts in its activity, so you still feel the effect of seeing the actors really go for it.
The fight choreography is bombastic and exciting even apart from the editing. Marvin Gable is not presented as too unstoppable or unrealistic. He's a very good fighter, but he makes several blunders, too, especially early in the movie where you can tell he is struggling with dusting off his old skills. But he develops into the wild man he once was with each brawl that he engages in, and by the climax when it's time for the ultimate battle, he's ready to give it his all in the flick's best set piece.
- This is the rare movie that could have stood to have been 15 minutes or so longer. I don't normally make that as a comment, but Love Hurts was just one hour and twenty-three minutes. So it was a very brisk ride that would not have been hurt by adding in a few more scenes.
There is a relevant backstory to all the action we see, as we pick up Marvin's tale long after a final incident caused him to leave his life of violence behind. The problem is, that incident is what the entire movie is about, and we don't get to see it. So the movie is all tell and no show in that regard.
Additionally, we are informed through Marvin's inner monologue that he loves Rose, but we don't see anything between them that would show us that affection. He loves her, she loves him, but neither can say it. Why and why not? We never find out. This love story is woefully underdeveloped.
- Make no mistake: Love Hurts gets better as it goes along, and I always want to praise a movie for finishing strong. But it almost had no choice because the first act here is not that great. Even Marvin's first big fight scene comes across as a bit try-hard from the film and like we are supposed to care more than we do. It's an underwhelming brawl in a story that has already started slow and had some character development that didn't feel particularly special.
It also just doesn't hold a candle to better recent years' action flicks. The action here is fine--I noted I enjoyed it in the Ups--but it's no John Wick Chapter 4. I won't remember this as fondly as I do Nobody. And it lacks the frantic joy of something like Boy Kills World. It's just... a good action movie. But I feel like the 2020's have produced some great ones, and this doesn't exactly measure all the way up.
OVERALL
Love Hurts is a movie that probably deserves a lower score than I am going to give it, but the fact of the matter is that Ke Huy Quan cures a lot of ills. Sure, the first act is really bad. Yeah, the love story is half-baked. And I know the action set pieces, for as hard as they can clearly have tried, aren't as good as other movies'. But Quan is one of those guys who could tap dance and tell dad jokes for ninety minutes, and I'd be thoroughly entertained. He's that special.
🍿 = SCORE: 47 / 50
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