Random Hearts (1999)

Load of rubbish!!

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Whenever I see a review that accuses the film of being boring, I usually assume that the reviewer is a teenaged moron with the attention span of a radish and approximately the same intelligence. And then I watch the film and find it utterly captivating. Not this time!At risk of sounding like a teenaged moron, I must say that Random Hearts was totally boring. I mean an utter snooze-fest. Soporific. Mind-numbingly dull. Pointless. Tedious. Monotonous. And also way too long.The paper-thin plot could have made a decent enough 1 hour drama, but here (for a budget of 64 million bucks!!!) a narrative that could easily be described in one sentence gets dragged out to over two hours of bumbling, inept story-telling; lousy pacing from both director and editor, a sizable array of respected actors being utterly wasted/misused, recycled music that is almost identical to The Firm (same director and composer) with splashes of Tootsie (same director and composer) and the clumsiest, most ill-conceived and poorly executed subplot (padding) I've ever seen in a movie that wasn't made by 16-year-old film students.Altogether an amateurish, lazy, and execrable waste of time.

"Random Hearts" is about two widowed people who found out that their spouses were having affairs with each other's husband and wife, their dead spouses were found on an aeroplane when it crashed. Harrison Ford plays "Sergeant William 'Dutch' Van Den Broeck", Kristin Scott Thomas plays "Kay Chandler" a congresswoman. "Dutch" finds out first that his wife was having an affair with "Kay"'s husband, she eventually finds out and the situation brings them into each others lives."Random Hearts" is an unusual romantic drama based on a novel. The movie is slow-paced at times, but this is the type of flick that doesn't really go anywhere, it's about the connection between these two people "Dutch" and "Kay", as the film goes on you can't help but want these two new people to start a serious relationship, but it's more of a fling, things get intense at times and it's clear that 'Dutch' is more emotionally invested in his deceased wife's affair to the point where we seem him act like a total jerk (in one particular scene he picks up "Kay"'s purse and aggressively tips all the contents out on the kitchen counter looking for a key or whatever it was).This film gives us a "will they or won't they" stay in each other's lives, there's two other story lines that have a supporting role and that's "Kay"'s very public political life and "Dutch"'s job as a Sergeant, we see him go on a stakeout and get shot - that sideline story is a little weak, but then again so is this entire movie plot.The performances are okay, it is the ending that's the major problem, we see that "Dutch" is waiting for "Kay" at the airport and says that he wants to stay in contact with her, she is a little standoffish while still being friendly at the same time, he says that they should go on a date sometime and she agrees, then she walks off to the plane on her own, this is actually a realistic scenario, but this is not real life, this is a movie, where is the ending romance? it's labelled a romantic drama for goodness sake, we see these people spend time together all cosy at his cabin, they go around investigating every detail of their deceased spouses affair, and she is saying no to a relationship with him? why, exactly? her career is a weak excuse, by the end of the flick it's all in the papers and on the news about both of their spouses having an affair, so there's nothing to hide anymore, maybe "Kay" had a change of heart and doesn't want a relationship, but the thing is romantic dramas are supposed to make viewers feel all warm, but we're left feeling depressed. The end scene is not satisfying especially after all they've been through. Some end scenes shouldn't be clichéd, but that is only when they can pull it off without making the viewers feel like they regret watching, "Random Hearts" however should have had a clichéd ending and had him get on the plane with her.

Sydney Pollack kept a tight directorial rein on his stars and his cast in Random Hearts. As a result you get a romantic film both tender and expressive in their faces. Good thing that Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas have faces that the camera loves.They are the most unlikeliest of lovers. The only other way that these two would meet is if Washington, DC cop Ford was ever assigned to a security detail Representative Thomas. Unlikely as Ford's assignment is Internal Affairs. But somewhere their spouses Susanna Thompson and Peter Coyote did meet. In fact they've been meeting regularly for some time now.It all comes to light when the two are killed in a plane crash that goes down in the Potomac River. As one of them is traveling under an assumed name and the other lied about her destination it does take someone with the mind of an investigator to track it down. Depending on your point of view of how fortunate for Ford that he is one.Both Ford and Thomas are dealing with other issues. Ford and his partner Charles Dutton have just busted Dennis Haysbert, a cop who was shaking down social club operators for protection money. In fact in a very interesting hostage scene Ford puts Haysbert in custody. You have to see the film alone for how he handles that.As for Thomas she's facing a multi-millionaire opponent for her seat which is one of the two in New Hampshire. Not really a good time for dirty laundry to be aired. We never see her opponent, but he's one of those family values types so we know exactly what she can expect.Still these two become a comfort to each other and soon enough become quite a bit more. How their worlds eventually publicly intersect is for you to see Random Hearts.In a modern urban setting Random Hearts is a love story, the kind that Hollywood used to do so well. Bid kudos to Sydney Pollack and his stars and cast for delivering on this one.

This is the most ludicrously underrated movie out of the thousands I've looked at on this site. I can understand why most American moviegoers would not like it, as it is very nearly unique. The only movie I've seen that it might be likened to is Brief Encounter (the original English version with Trevor Howard, please), but this film is more subtle and interesting than the English classic.Random hearts is a story about two people, a man and a woman, whom the fates have mockingly drawn together for no better reason than their shared nightmare of betrayal, yet as it turns out their very different personalities perfectly complement each other in their efforts to cope and to find the antidote to their poisoned lives - which turns out to be perfect honesty with respect to each other, and integrity with respect to themselves.The movie itself is as honest and integral as its protagonists learn to be. Contrary to what some have said, the plot is both plausible and realistic, and all the little opportunities for over-dramatization that most American directors and actors cannot resist, are studiously avoided. And since the protagonists are intelligent but not particularly articulate, still less self-aware (which is what the movie is about), meanings and dramatic passages are mostly conveyed visually, and by first rate acting and direction, rather than editorially, via the script. Overall, the tone is one of somber realism, which creates the ideal backdrop for the subtly dramatic re-emergence of the underlying humanity and vitality of the characters, in the wake of their mutual trauma.I believe my characterization of this movie makes it fairly self-evident why so many Hollywood-conditioned viewers find this movie flat, boring, and unsatisfying, and I suppose that they also feel cheated because this is not a typical Harrison Ford movie, any more than Bridges of Madison County is a typical Clint Eastwood movie. Yet both of these films are among the best that either actor has ever done.Many seem to see the casting of Kristin Scott Thomas opposite Ford as bizarre, but I see it as brilliant. A principal theme of this movie is to probe for the common humanity that often underlies superficial differences of background, personality, and presentation, and to remind us of what is truly important in our character and our relationships.