To an action movie connoisseur, the name 87North is like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. These guys know and love practical action fights, chases, shootouts and they do it, in films like John Wick,Atomic Blonde, andNobody,better than just about anyone in modern Hollywood. If theyre involved, you know a film is gonna deliver the goods, at least on a technical level.Unfortunately, movies are more than their technical levels, or even their bravura action. Love Hurts fight scenes are as expertly executed as youd expect from the 87North crew. Its everything else thats below par. The story is a jumbled, hurried mess and the award-winning cast cantsettle on a cohesive tone. And to be honest, as crisp asthe action sequences are, with so little variety and without anything else of note onscreen to latch on to, they start tofeel a little repetitive.The film should be a showcase for Ke Huy Quan, theformer child star of The GooniesandIndiana Jones and the Temple of Doomwho had a welcome career revival (and won an Oscar) for his role in 2022s Everything Everywhere All At Once. Here he plays Marvin Gable, a mild-mannered real estate agent with a dark secret: He used to work as a vicious enforcer for his gangster brother Knuckles (Daniel Wu) until he was granted his retirement from The Lifeafter agreeing tokill a woman named Rose (Ariana DeBose).LOVE HURTSUniversalloading...READ MORE: The Best Movie Titles in HistoryExcept Marvin didnt kill Rose. He spared her life and hid the evidence. Everything was fine until Rose beginssending taunting Valentines Day cards to Knuckles and his men. (The onlyexplanation sheoffers for thisbaffling choice is to repeatedly announce toMarvin that hiding isnt living.) Roses returnsets off a flurry of violence, with Knuckles goons trying to findher through Marvin while Marvin, who secretly loves Rose, tries desperately to protect her and his new life as a humble realtor.The notion of a retired hitman forced toreturn to his aggressive ways is a familiar one from action movies in general, and 87Northproductions in particular. Thats the premise of theJohn Wick saga, where it served as the foundation for an operatic revenge tale, and also ofNobody, a dark comedy about the incongruity of seeing scrawny Bob Odenkirk as a bone-breaking badass.Love Hurts leans into that same incongruity, with the diminutive Quan wiping the floor with enormous adversaries like Mustafa Shakirand former NFL pro Marshawn Lynch.But theres no shock to Quans martial arts skills, at least not for anyone who saw him pull off a similar trick inEverything Everywhere All at Once. Still, Quan is way more convincing in the fight scenes than when hes asked to play Lothario; he has no chemistry with DeBose, whose over-the-top mannerisms are a total mismatch forQuans grounded, sheepish performance.LOVE HURTSUniversalloading...It doesnt help thatLove Hurts is barely 80 minutes long, and everything around the action has been trimmed to the absolute minimum, meaning the script has zero time to offera single reason why these two people withwildly different temperaments, ambitions, and ages (DeBose is almost 20 years younger than Quan) would ever fall for each other. Director Jonathan Eusebiosurroundsthe already threadbareA plot with a few loose threads about romance one hitman sendsapologetic texts to an unseen spouse, another falls for a witness to his brutal acts but the ValentinesDay setting add nothing of substance to the film except a reason to release it in theaters in the middle of February.In a world where many big-budget filmmakers are content to let visual effects artists sort out their action scenes for them, it isnice to see a film filled with old school stunts and intricate fight choreography. And Quan remains an extremely likable actor, as well as an impressive martial artist. (Even beforeEverything Everywhere All at Once, he hadworked on several Hollywood productions as a fight choreographer.) Its great to see him back on the screen, but hes let down by his material here. When hes not kicking butt,Love Hurtsis downright painful.LOVE HURTSUniversalloading...Additional Thoughts-Marshawn Lynchs performances in this and the recentBottoms suggest he is a natural comic screen presence. Also, hes credited in this film as Marshawn Beast Mode Lynch, and I deeply respect that decision.RATING: 4/10Get our free mobile appThe 10 Most Ridiculous Tropes In Action MoviesGood luck finding an action movie that doesn't have at least a few of these stereotypes.