Love Hurts

Marvin is one of the best realtors in all of Milwaukee, but on Valentine's Day, he receives a crimson envelope from Rose, a former partner-in-crime from a darker life that he left behind, someone he believed to be dead. Turns out, she isn't, and she is being hunted by Marvin's crime boss brother, and now Marvin is too. Y’see, Marvin was once a deadly hit man, but he gave all that up and tried to live a new, quieter, less deadly life, but his old one just won’t let him…

Now, Marvin must dodge gunshots, karate kicks, throwing knives, all sorts of bad shit, as his old life of being a cold-hearted underworld killer crashes headlong into his new life of baking cookies and helping people find their forever homes.

Marvin Gable is a peppy, eternally optimistic guy, as well as the most successful real estate agent in the Milwaukee area. He was even recently awarded Best Real Estate Agent by his boss, friend, and mentor Cliff Cussick.

But in actuality, Marvin is a former assassin for a criminal organization known as The Company, which is run by his estranged brother Alvin, who is better known in the local underworld as Knuckles. Years ago, Marvin was sent to eliminate a young lawyer, Rose, after she stole from the Company, but she was just too pretty, so he told her to run instead, and faked her death, and then, tired of all the bloodshed and deceit, Marvin ditched his own life too, and started over anew.

In the present, on Valentine's Day, Marvin receives a letter in a mysterious red enveloped. It’s from Rose. Unfortunately for Marvin, Rose doesn't want to be dead anymore, she hates being cut off from her old life. And in even more bad news for Marvin, she sent the same letter to Knuckles too—who is still mad about the whole situation—effectively ending both of their new lives, because apparently Rose is the type of woman who picks fights, then expects her boyfriend to deal with the fallout. How two of these people remained dead from the third, and for years too, when all three live in the same city, and always have, especially when Marvin’s face is blown up huge, and pasted all over billboards and bus stops in order to advertise his real estate agency, I have no idea.

So anyway, Knuckles tracks down his estranged brother and sends some hitmen. Marvin is attacked in his office by a knife-wielding, poetry-obsessed assassin called Raven, who was hired by Knuckles to find Rose, all while Marvin's coworkers have a Valentine's Day mandatory fun work party just outside.

That the office is having a Valentine’s Day Office Party at all is probably the least believable aspect of this whole ridiculous film, which is really saying something, as we're also asked to belive that Ke Huy Quan was once a heartless assassin. No one outside of elementary school has Valentine’s Day parties, the potential HR issues, not to mention the possible traumatic fallout of reminding the single people in the office that they’re alone, there’s only downsides. I assume the whole V-Day setting was actually the result of a studio mandate for Valentines counter-programming, because Christmas clearly would've been the better holiday for the setting.

Anyway, my point is, this movie should've been about Raven, because he's the most awesome part of the film.

Marvin and Raven fight, and Marvin escapes.

Marvin then does the dumbest thing ever, and heads directly to his house to get some dumb personal shit, including his stupid real estate award. When he arrives home, he is of course set upon by two more guys who were hired by Knuckles to find Rose. These guys decided to just stake out Marvin’s house, which honestly would’ve been a dumb idea, because who would be stupid enough to run home, right? Marvin is, apparently.

Anyway, their names are King and Otis.

King and Otis are a hitman team made up of a skinny white guy and a huge black guy, and they are the usual overly-loquacious, on a journey self-discovery, pair of uber-violent hitmen. Y'know what I mean, its the kind of cliche where they talk to each other in very articulate and sensitive terms about their relationships and their potential glutton allergies, all while they're committing ultra-violence. Apparently, the bastard children of Tarantino still walk amongst us.

Anyway, Marvin defeats them, but he is then captured by Rose.

Even after maybe five-ish years, Rose is still pretty, and also still nice, and at her hideout/apartment where she receives mail and bills, she tells her whole story to Marvin, and also her plan to take down Knuckles, and its... whatever. The usual shit. You won’t be surprised by anything here. More than anything, I’m wondering if the fact that Marvin and Rose were able to fake their deaths, and then basically just move to an enjoining neighborhood and were never discovered to still be alive, despite openly working their regular-ass public-facing jobs 40 hours a week, only managed to succeed because cities don’t make phone books anymore…

Anyway…

There's a couple more scenes of fighting, which are usually based on some idea like... Marvin has to take out a machine-gun-wielding villain AND sell this house at the same time. Unfortunately, it’s getting all shot up, and as a result, the really nice couple looking for their forever home are feeling a little skittish about committing, mostly due to the whole gun battle thing that’s happening during the showing. But don't worry, Marvin tells them, as they duck bullets, he's knows some really great contractors! They'll fix that awning right up! And that chandelier too! A little paint and they won't even notice all the bullet holes.

It’s cute, but not enough to make it worth it.

In the end, Marvin and Rose take out Knuckles, declare their love for each other, and probably live happily ever after as Real Estate Agents/Killers for Hire.

I was watching a tv show the other night, and one of the plot points was how everyone loves John Wick. And it's true. Everyone does love John Wick. Not only does it look good, and the action is great, but the idea that you would murder every single motherfucker alive with even the most tenuous of connections to the son of a bitch who hurt your pet, then burn down the entire edifice of their lives, and salt the very earth behind them, so that nothing would ever grow there again, is really relatable. Everyone loves John Wick. Even me. Even though I'm pretty ambivalent on the series, if people ask me if I'll watch John Wick if it's on, I'm thinking, yeah... I'll definitely watch it when it's on.

So as a result of everyone loving John Wick, there’s been no end of imitators from Hollywood, both great and small, riffing on the idea that the world's greatest killer is back, and they're bringing hell with them. Sisu, Nobody, Wrath of Man, Atomic Blonde. Kate, Extraction. Extraction 2. The Accountant. The Accountant 2. Even Violent Night. On and on and on. Love Hurts is a lesser example of that formula. A much lesser example.

In the end, this just isn't a good film. It's not really bad in any specific way, it just kind of hits all of the expected notes in all of the expected ways, and then it ends. And all while moving at a glacial pace too, which isn’t good, especially when we’re talking about an 85 minute movie. The fights are fun, but really, if you're looking for a John Wick riff, you can do a lot better than this failed CW network pilot episode version.

But all that having been said, I did enjoy seeing Mikey and Data back together again, so there's that at least.