Nadine Salakov "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.

dvts Without actually having read any of the reviews (except Ebert's), I think I can understand why it would rate so low - it fails as a movie. Kind of. It makes a half-hearted attempt to have a plot and to have plot mechanics and so on. And just doesn't care at all about any of that stuff, and eventually it all just fades away to nothing. Because the filmmakers don't care at all about the cop's case or his career, any more than they care about the congresswoman's career or her race for re- election, or her relationship with her daughter, or even how each of these people grieves over the loss of their spouses or the betrayal. No, the movie's not about any of that, yet that takes up a good portion of it - so it makes sense that a lot of people would go thumbs down on this.And yet - the movie is really good, if you focus just on what the movie itself cared about in itself, and what it was about at heart. And that is, simply, the two leads, and their relationship. And that's it. The rest of the movie doesn't matter at all to the people making it. But that's OK, because - Ford and Scott Thomas are amazing in this. And have amazing chemistry. And are amazingly written. We love the relationship, we really love the two people in it. We want them to end up together (I won't say if they do or not). Badly. And all the rest is just stuff to justify getting them from point A to point B and having the relationship happen and take the steps it needs to take - and that INCLUDES the entire 'premise' of the film itself, including the plane crash and the situation that opens it. So. As I say, I can see why this would get a fail grade. But it's so involving and the good in it is so good - we care so much about what the filmmakers cared about in the movie - that I can recommend it and could imagine watching it again at some point. Even if only for Kristin Scott Thomas's beautiful face with those big puppy dog eyes that are just - so open and emotional. You can fall in love with her, watching this, much moreso than in The English Patient. Her character here is extremely endearing and adorable - two words I've never used to describe any politician, fictional or otherwise. So perhaps she was miscast. But yea. A lovely woman playing a character you could imagine falling in love with (and do fall in love with, watching the movie), being hurt and having a disaster befall her, being vulnerable, and then meeting and falling for as likable and respectable and endearing a MALE performer as we've ever seen on screen. It's a recipe for success and despite the failed movie surrounding it, I think it was a success.Also of note - film features a young Kate "Never Quite Famous" Mara in an early role as the congresswoman's daughter. And there's a late scene of plot movement where a subplot crashes hilariously into the main story, in a way that momentarily threatened to be the most ludicrous such subplot intrusion in the history of cinema (narrowly averted, as she didn't take the bullet, thank God).Is the movie plausible, psychologically? No. It's absurd, psychologically. My OnDemand deal had Peter Weir's (brilliant) "Fearless" as a similar film to this. And superficially, in some plot details, yea I guess they are similar. But the films are nothing at all alike, nor are they about anything similar. The one line towards the end where Scott Thomas tells the press how the cop had been her friend, seen her thru a tough time when she needed it, how they were 'survivors' - all that rings completely hollow and doesn't match the film, which simply depicts a romance. The thing Scott Thomas is talking about at the end there would match the Rosie Perez/Jeff Bridges relationship in Fearless, which was indeed about two survivors of a tragedy using each other's company to cope (or not cope) with a trauma they'd both experienced. But this film isn't about trauma. It sidesteps all of that very quickly and is simply about a romance that, if freed from the requirements of psychological plausibility and the plot, is quite good. So. If you still are interested in seeing a nice and involving romance, despite all those many caveats - check it out.

Robert J. Maxwell In "The Big Heat," detective Glenn Ford's loving wife is blown up by the heavies and he becomes obsessed with nailing the killers. All his colleagues and friends are sympathetic but as Ford pushes beyond the limits of the envelope, they withdraw their support. There's no controlling Ford's morbid determination.In this movie, Harrison Ford discovers that his wife was killed in an airplane crash, seated next to the married man she was having an affair with, both on their way to a secret holiday in Miami. Harrison Ford is in thrall to a grim determination to find out all he can about the affair -- the hotel room they used in Miami, the rendezvous point in Washington, the night clubs they went to, the gifts they gave each other. It makes little sense because we haven't seen Ford and his wife happy together. If Glenn Ford was driven half crazy by grief, enough to lose his job, Harrison Ford lacks that compelling motive, although he too loses his job.Along the way he discovers Kristen Scott Thomas, the betrayed wife of the man who was cuckolding him. She's in Congress and can't afford the publicity of having the affair made public. They're at odds with each other. He wants to know all the details while she's stoic and wants to put the whole ordeal behind her. Of course Ford and Thomas have an affair.Is there anything beneath this sappy love story besides the romantic musical score? It has holes -- major and minor -- in the plot. Minor: Thomas' daughter, Jessica, is in Andover, "a prep school," described as forty miles from Washington, although Phillips Andover Academy is in Massachusetts, 25 miles north of Boston.Major: While Ford and Thomas hardly know one another, and she's been icy towards him, they fall into a desperate and strenuous clinch in a car and he apparently brings her off in ten seconds.Well, that's rather "intermediate" than "major", because it adumbrates the affair that begins soon after. But here's another major flaw: The last politician to be actually damaged by a divorce or revelation of a wandering spouse was Nelson Rockefeller in 1964. Granted that the press has turned far more tabloid in its sensibilities since then, the fact that one's father has been shacking up on weekends isn't really enough to make sophisticated, sixteen-year-old Jessica drop a plate on the floor in shock. Now if he'd been a serial killer -- There is a sub-theme that has Ford, in Internal Affairs, trying to nail an errant cop. It belongs in an action movie. It seems to have little to do with the developing romance.The performances are okay. Harrison Ford looks glum throughout, wears a hangdog expression, and when he parts for the last time with Thomas he tries to smile openly for the first time and one hears the creak of long-unused facial muscles. Thomas, on the other hand, is more animated. She's quite pretty, her aquiline schnozz notwithstanding. She's appealing -- pale, fragile, wide-eyed -- and from some angles resembles Marlene Dietrich except for von Sternberg's lighting and that thin but prominent nose.But it's mostly a confusing mess. I had no idea where the movie was headed. That's okay because I sometimes get derailed. What was troubling was that I couldn't be at all sure that the writers knew what they were about either.

ffreemon The opening scenes grab you and push you back into your seat. The two stars of the film have just lost their spouses in an air crash. They must identify the bodies. Harrison Ford discovers his wife was sitting next to a man in first class so he calls upon the wife of this man. He suspects that they might have been having an affair. Harrison Ford is such a good actor; he leads you into the film and won't let you go. This is a bit unfortunate because the story slowly deteriorates. No viewer can miss what is going to happen next but this review will not tell you just in case someone new to American cinema fears "a spoiler." The acting is so good that the film can hold your interest, but it does not seem to live up to its riveting beginning.