Reaction Shots

This is a silly, silly movie. There’s so much goodwill surrounding Ke Huy Quan and the whole wast is so game, that it’s relatively easy to forgive how silly it is. How silly is it? It wants to be an action-packed rom-com centered on a realtor who has a sordid, violent past, and is populated with hit men who write poetry and try to guide their partners through navigating break-ups. It’s a start and stop proposition, as well. When it leans into its Looney Toons set-ups and pacing, the film fires on all cylinders, but as fine as Ariana DeBose and Ke Huy Quan are, there’s a halting element when they get together. The voiceovers don’t help, either. Also, Marvin’s gangster brought Alvin (Daniel Wu) is so cookie-cutter, that there is no sense of threat; the stakes are undercut by the fun of the mayhem and the comedic high notes, of which there are several. A set-piece where Marshawn Lynch (once again showing off killer comic chops) and André Erikson show up to pressure Marvin into revealing R...