s rising Wisconsin real estate star Marvin Gable (Ke Huy Kwan) prepares to close on another sale, as well as attend his office’s Valentine’s Day party, his past catches up to him in disastrous fashion. A blade-proficient assassin (Mustafa Shakir), hired by Marvin’s mobster brother and former employer Alvin (Daniel Wu), ambushes the mild-mannered realtor with a demand to know the whereabouts of another former employee, old flame Rose Carlisle (Ariana DeBose). Realizing that his career – and his very life – depends on locating Rose before Alvin’s henchmen do, Marvin careens through the city in search of the one that got away.

It’s a romantic comedy with a twist, though that twist is exactly what everyone will expect going into this film: an everyman with a workaday job gets wrapped up in excitement when his shady past resurfaces. Strangely, there’s a bit of a clash between the two worlds and the message here, since the main protagonist is genuinely happy with his new identity. He’s inspired by his extraordinarily accommodating boss (Sean Astin) and motivates those around him with an infectious positivity (and cookies); he’s more than content, more than fulfilled. He’s not lacking in confidence or success, especially as it relates to his assistant (Lio Tipton) commenting that a rival’s tough-guy advertising makes Marvin seem weak.

And that’s the problem; is this movie attempting to say that physical diminutiveness and inner goodness are superior to the appearance of external formidability and the ability to exhibit intimidating machismo? If so, that comes screeching to a halt when it’s revealed that Marvin is more than capable of unleashing fists of fury to humble statuesque opponents twice his size. It’s difficult to get on board with a mantra about personal satisfaction and general equanimity when the hero is also a former assassin with extraordinary skills when it comes to maiming and killing. He is, in fact, macho. “Every day is an opportunity to change your life.”

It’s also problematic that all of this is meant to be lighthearted and comical to better fit with the romantic subplots. As it turns out, the martial arts sequences are incredibly heavy-hitting, with limbs snapping, blood gushing, and stabbing weapons piercing flesh with such ferocity (the sound design is exquisite) that it’s difficult to dismiss them when, just a second later, characters crack a joke or offer up a little flirtation. The collateral damage is unreasonably ruthless and high for a picture that wants to craft funny interactions in between the bloodletting. It’s also terribly unrealistic; even if one could believe that Quan can handle himself against the likes of the sizable heavies he duels, it’s another thing entirely to believe that he can brush himself off after getting hit squarely in the face with a baseball bat – more than once.

A few shots of creative cinematography paired with fast-paced choreography help to spruce up the standard hand-to-hand combat sequences, but the over-the-top nature of a couch blocking an unremitting barrage of machine gun fire, or numerous knife wounds posing not a hint of tenderness, are always there to remind audiences of the film’s obvious fictions. And with the quantity of the violence, the comic relief components are thoroughly deficient; hardly a single scene is strong enough to coax a laugh-out-loud reaction. This goes for the love story, too, which is outrageously unconvincing – particularly as no one behaves as if in the life-or-death scenarios that they inhabit, always making time to give a knowing glance or to sweetly reminisce, even as bullets whiz around them or gangsters stall what should be a swift execution.

Surrounding the central romance (with another two supporting roles receiving nonsensical, cartoonish romances themselves, possibly a forced inclusion for Valentine’s Day marketing) is a rather straightforward story that tries to complicate itself in the worst way possible: by introducing extra characters who are interrogated at length just so that viewers receive specific exposition. And if that wasn’t enough, several personas provide voiceover narrations, as if it wasn’t completely apparent how the characters feel about one another, regardless. By the end, none of the ideas fit together nicely; the action, the comedy, and the romance are too poorly intertwined and too contrasting in their contexts to result in a satisfying blend, while the storytelling and scripting are too generic to stand out.

– The Massie Twins