Day: February 6, 2025

My son asked me what “Love Hurts” was about. I told him it was about how we can’t just move on from our past. “Oh,” he looked concerned, “That’s a bad movie.” Unlike my son concluded, “Love Hurts” isn’t a bad movie, but it’s not a Christian one. The theme repeated over and over is that we cannot move on from the past until we conquer it. Our main character desperately works for redemption, but the film keeps telling him he can’t have it. His aw-shucks charm in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” combined with the nostalgia for his 80s career has combined to make Ke Huy Quan Hollywood’s “it” man of the moment. And “Love Hurts” is the star vehicle to determine if he can top the marquee of a nationwide opening.  It’s a bit of a mixed bag. The film is set over a Valentine’s Day weekend. Quan, plays Marvin Gable the regional realtor of the year. His upbeat attitude endears him to his clients and coworkers alike. Marvin used to be the enforcer for the local mob run by his brother. His brother ordered him to take out Rose, his unrequited crush, for stealing. But Marvin let her live and started a new life. Rose has decided to come back, delivering Valentine’s to the major players, dragging Marvin back into the life he tried to leave behind. The film, which runs a brisk 85 minutes, is mostly a series of choreographed fight scenes interspersed with just enough exposition to explain the plot and three love stories. So it’s worth mentioning that the fight choreography is very focused on creating tableaus showing off the imagination of the designer. And this does work to create some eye-popping visuals.  But I’m not sure if the trade-off to get those moments was worth it. To get to the visual moments it wants to show off the fights vacillate wildly between grounded brutal realism and physics so implausible it would make the Avengers blush, with no real explanation or meaning between the two. The pacing of the fights was often awkward and halting. And I never felt any stakes in the scenes because I never knew how much risk my protagonists were in.  The film uses a series of intermittent voice-overs from both Marvin and Rose to explain their attraction to one another. But the chemistry between the two never takes off. And while the film explains why Rose would be attracted to Marvin’s kindness and power, we never figure out why Marvin was willing to throw his entire life away twice at an outside chance with a woman who isn’t that interested in him.  The two grunts in the film played by André Eriksen and Marshawn Lynch, spend the time between their fights figuring out how to write a text to repair one of their marriages. The most amusing romance is between Raven, who breaks into Marvin’s office to fight him, and Ashley, the real estate assistant who finds his unconscious body and falls in love with him while reading his poetry in his notebook before he wakes up.  The movie is surprisingly funny. It leans into the cliches of the Asian mob film, and then juxtaposes it next to a bunch of odd things: suburban model homes, an all-American black belt, a poet, a pull-over sweater. It’s mostly just the one joke, but it’s enough for the film’s brisk run. My favorite part of the film was Sean Astin. Astin plays Marvin’s boss, and older brother figure who gave him the job when he escaped the mob. Astin and Quan famously shared the screen in “Goonies.” During the scene early in the film when Astin gives Quan the real estate award, you could feel the dialogue transcend the characters. It felt like Astin was so proud of the success of his old friend Quan, and this was his moment to tell him.  Quan, for his part, does everything right but doesn’t take the material to another level.  If you love fight choreography, there will certainly be some interesting things to look at here. And if you want a classic action romp with a few laughs and a Valentine’s twist this might be the film for you. But for most people, I don’t think it all comes together. It’s too gory without meaning. And while the movie seems to think it has a happy ending, I can’t imagine that most of the people watching will agree. It’s got R-rated content with no compensating uplift to make it worth the experience. Two out of five stars. “Love Hurts” opens nationwide on February 7, 2025.

“Bring Them Down” is a careful small-town drama about Irish sheep farmers. The film stars Christopher Abbott as Michael after his acclaimed performance as the villain in “Poor Things,” and titular role in “Wolf Man.”  Barry Keoghan plays opposite as Jack, the son of neighboring farmers. Keoghan also made his mark in a Yorgos Lanthimos film, “Killing of a Sacred Deer.” He is as up-and-coming as an actor can be, set to star in the highly anticipated Beatles biopic.  The film is mostly a showpiece for the two talented leads to luxuriate in the acting moments that the revenge plot affords them. Abbott builds a character suspended in tension between his guilt over his mother’s passing, his deference to his strong-willed father, his honor, and his self-sufficiency. Keoghan has a slightly more complicated job, as he needs to find the motivation to start the feud inside a character that is juvenile and slight. As a showcase, the film is a success. Not many people will see it, but it will certainly help burnish the reputations of Abbot and Keoghan as formidable actors. And the plot is good enough to serve that purpose. Caroline, Michael’s ex-girlfriend, and Jack’s mother, has decided to leave Jack’s father because of their financial problem. A bridge is out, and Michael’s father is reluctant to let Jack’s family cross his property. So Jack hatches a plan to steal two prized rams from Michael’s family. When Jack’s dad catches him, he makes him kill the ram and get rid of it. The woman they sell it to offers them good money for sheep legs, offering what Jack sees as a solution to his family’s problems. But rather than tell the story in a forthright way, the edit tells the story twice, first from Michael’s point of view, and then from Jack’s. So during the first half of the film things move so fast and with so little context, you struggle to know what’s going on. Then when it restarts, the audience doesn’t know the device yet, and doesn’t figure it out for about twenty minutes when plot points begin to repeat themselves.  Once we figure it out, the idea isn’t terrible. When we were strictly in Michael’s perspective the feud seems meaningless and is cast in strictly moralistic terms. When we revisit it through Jack’s perspective, we can begin to appreciate the complicated factors that led to Jack’s decision.  But the edit doesn’t tell the story clearly enough. So the main emotion I felt while watching the film was confusion. I’m certain that the film would improve on a rewatch, but the ultimate story that a feud develops because Jack steals Michael’s sheep to keep his parents together doesn’t have enough heft to draw me back. It’s a pastoral film, and it does a good job of capturing the place. Colm Meaney, who plays Michael’s father, Ray, does a particularly notable job speaking Irish at length. First-time director Chris Andrews has some interesting ideas. He is clearly capable of letting talented actors do what they do best, a skill that will serve him well in his directing career. The film is also shot in a subdued way that highlights the natural light and natural beauty of the setting, but without ever drawing attention to itself.  The use of fire in the film’s back half is particularly notable.  “Bring Them Down” is R-rated for its violence and language. The domestic violence where Jack’s mother beats Jack’s father is particularly harrowing. But I found the film’s moral message to be largely in the right place. Jack’s theft leads to nothing but suffering. And revenge is shown as almost entirely futile. The film even offers a glimpse at honest redemption. Still, I wouldn’t watch this with my kids, at least until they were adults.  Two and a half out of five stars. “Bring Them Down” releases in theaters nationwide February 7, 2025.