REVIEW: “Love Hurts” (2025)


WRITER’S NOTE: The following was originally posted on my Facebook page on February 14, 2025. 

Those of us who grew up in the 1980s will always remember Ke Huy Quan as Short Round in Indiana Jones and as Data in The Goonies. Nowadays, the Oscar-winner from Everything Everywhere All At Once is well known for his selfies with other celebrities, but even more so for his enthusiastic and infectious personality. (And we love him for it.) But only few of us may be aware that Quan had a second career after he stepped away from the screen in the 1990s, when he took on a behind-the-scenes role as a stunt coordinator on various action movies like X-Men and The One. 

Now in his early-50s, Quan’s leading role in the 87 North-produced Love Hurts could be described as a culmination of his skills as a stuntman and as a mature actor. Both are undoubtedly put to effective use. In the film, he plays Marvin Gable, an optimistic real estate agent (in Milwaukee, WI, of all places) whose violent past as a hitman comes back to haunt him when an old flame he once rescued (the always-dynamic Ariana DeBose) sends him a message to get back in the game. What follows is a crazy mixture of comedy, action, romance, and bloody violence, set around where else but Valentine’s Day. 

Featuring appearances by fellow Goonie Sean Astin (as Marvin’s boss), one of the “Property Brothers” as a fellow agent, and Lio Tipton as a depressed coworker (you may remember her as the babysitter from Crazy Stupid Love), the fight sequences are certainly the highlights of Love Hurts. They’re fast-paced, skillfully choreographed, creative, and insane in equal measure, with one particular sequence set to Barry White music (a better use of said track than in Matthew Vaughn’s Aargyle from last year, which featured DeBose in a small role). 

There are some surprising themes of characters wanting to live better lives and make better choices, even facing their past selves in order to do so. Interesting that even some of the goons in this movie have relationship issues that they want to resolve. (“You can’t change a man who doesn’t want to be changed,” one character tells us.) There’s also the question of whether Marvin or other characters are really turning over new leaves or just hiding (“Hiding ain’t living”), the difference between getting a life and already having one, and the risk in saving a life. 

The thing is, those messages get misguided in the aforementioned genre mixes, especially with all the hard-hitting violence and “Swiss cheese”-style shoot-‘em-up mayhem. Not to mention characters spitting out as many four-letter words as the number of bullets and punches that shoot across the screen. Add to that complicated sibling dynamics and moments at a bar/strip club sans pornographic nudity. 

As I said, Love Hurts puts Quan’s fighting and acting skills to effective use. We even see what he’s like in, quote-on-quote, beast mode (“the good, the bad, the everything”). Ironically, I would’ve liked to see more development in him, the other characters, and the story. With a runtime of 82 minutes, the film feels a little too short. With a personality like Quan’s, a longer runtime is worthy of that. 

#filmfreeq #bekerianreviews #21stcenturycinema #universalpictures #87north #jonathaneusebio #kehuyquan #lovehurts2025

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