Detective discovers his own 'internal affair'
R. Kyle | USA | 02/01/2009
(3 out of 5 stars)
"Dutch (Harrison Ford) is a DC police sergeant detailed to Internal Affairs who discovers after a plane crash that his late wife was having an affair of her own. This leads him to Congresswoman Kay Chandler (Kristin Scott Thomas) who is running for re-election and coping with the grief of learning her husband died on the plane crash as well.
It seems Dutch's wife and Chandler's husband were flying together on that plane as man and wife. As unlikely as that scenario is in post - 9/11 reality, it could have happened back in 1999 when Sidney Pollack first released the film.
Being a cop, Dutch has to know the details of the affair. He drags Kay reluctantly along with him and the two of them begin to feel the inevitable attraction. Mostly the main plot of this story moves at a snail's pace. More interesting is Dutch's investigation of Det. George Beaufort (Dennis Haysbert) for murder, which sadly takes a back seat.
"Random Hearts" is a must for Harrison Ford fans. If you like slow emotional drama, you may also enjoy this film. The soundtrack is excellent.
Rebecca Kyle, February 2009"
Random Hearts
B. Essick | Lexington, NC United States | 12/08/2008
(2 out of 5 stars)
"The DVD came on a timely basis. I just had a chance to watch it yesterday, 12/6/08. The DVD had a bad place about half way through the movie. I guess that's to be expected with a used copy. I will think twice about ordering used in the future."
How to Tell That Harrison Ford is Alive
Robert Derenthal | California United States | 09/14/2007
(2 out of 5 stars)
"You can tell that Harrison Ford is alive because his lips occasionally move. His face looks like it is carved in stone throughout the movie, no smiles, no sorrow, no happiness, just a death mask. His wife, and a congresswoman's husband die together in a plane crash. It turns out that they were having an affair. The bereft husband (Ford) and wife (Thomas) sort of fall in love. You sit through this movie constantly wondering why anyone would fall for the wooden Harrison Ford. Don't get me wrong, I like Harrison Ford, but in this flick his affectless performance makes John Wayne seem like Jerry Lewis.
So there you have it, a totally uninteresting romance. This is one movie where you do not see the newly in love couple romping through a flowery meadow. In fact it would be more likely to have Scott take Ford to a mortuary and have him embalmed.
Realizing that the audience will probably doze off from time to time, the director periodically livens things up by having Ford, a police officer, punch somebody out or threaten to kill someone. So that's it, a policeman with total face paralysis takes up with a Republican (in case that matters to you) Congresswoman and they do things together. What things? Well you know, sit on a park bench and eat sandwiches, fondle each other in a car, ransack the apartment where their ex spouses would have their trysts. Finally, the movie doesn't end; it just dies.
Oh, I might add that if you go to the Rotten Tomatoes web site you'll find that only 13% of the top critics found Random Hearts to be an interesting movie. I tend to agree with Todd McCarthy of Variety when he says, "Laborious, remote and strangely uninvolving.""