Rating: 

The Info

Directed by: Sydney Pollack
Written by: Kurt Luedtke (novel by Warren Adler)
Starring: Harrison Ford, Kristin Scott Thomas, Charles S. Dutton, Bonnie Hunt, Dennis Haysbert, Sydney Pollack
Produced by: Sydney Pollack, Marykay Powell

The Nutshell

A policeman and a Congresswoman find out that their spouses were having an affair together, and have perished in a plane crash.

The Review

    There is a disturbing trend in Hollywood involving romantic dramas. The ways in which film characters fall in love are becoming more and more absurd and implausible. There was a time when you could watch a couple slowly fall in love with each other, and you knew why it was happening. Their courtship was played out on the screen for us to voyeuristically observe. Today, we are simply told to accept the fact that the stars have fallen in love. Two recent examples both involve Julia Roberts. In Notting Hill, Roberts and Grant fall in love because he spills orange juice on her and invites her to his apartment to get cleaned up. Roberts plays the world's most famous actress and he is a simple Englishman, yet somehow they fall for each other instantly. In Runaway Bride, a most outrageous romantic pairing occurs; Roberts plays a woman who repeatedly dumps men at the altar. Richard Gere is the tabloid writer who wants to write an expose about her sadistic habit, yet somehow he falls in love with her. She is rude, selfish and temporarily ruins the lives of every man she thinks she loves, yet Gere falls helplessly in love with her. Does this make sense?

    As the major romantic drama of the fall, Random Hearts should make a lot of money. After all, it stars Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas, one of People Magazine's Sexiest Men Of The Year, and the actress who starred in one of the most popular romantic films of the decade. It's too bad that this film follows in Ms. Roberts' footsteps, attempting to feed its audience something unbelievable. Ford is Dutch Van Den Broeck, a police sergeant whose wife is leaving for Miami for a photo shoot. Thomas is Kay Chandler, a Congresswoman facing re-election whose husband is flying to Miami on the same plane. When the plane crashes and their spouses die, Dutch and Kay discover the hard truth; that their loved ones were having an affair together. Dutch reveals this fact to Kay and somehow, after obsessively taunting her with little teasers ("Wouldn't you like to know where they were going to sleep? "Don't you want to know how long it was going on?"), she goes and falls for him. One minute they are arguing and the next, painfully making out in her car. This transition is sudden and surprising, making Random Hearts yet another poor romance of the 90s.

    Director Sydney Pollack follows his usual style here, using lots of slowly planning camera shots and creating scenes which move at a snail's pace. Pollack is surely no fan of recent MTV-style films like Stigmata, which flash across the screen and dazzle you with their hip style; today's young audiences would call him an old-school director. He has said that he chose Ford and Thomas for their obvious differences in demeanour; one a gruff Everyman, the other an upper-class noblewoman. Granted, these descriptions aren't necessarily true, but it is how the two actors are perceived by the average person. Pollack transplanted these traits into their characters, to make their pairing interesting. Unfortunately, one star has a well-written character but can't embody it, while the other's character is sketchy and poorly rendered, but the star has no trouble with the role.

    Harrison Ford is a safe actor. He picks characters who are good guys, with a bit of a sarcastic side to them; Han Solo, Indiana Jones and Jack Ryan are the most popular heroes he has played. So it is no surprise to find that while Dutch Van Den Broeck gets obsessive and a bit paranoid due to his wife's infidelity, he is still a good man. He beats a few people up, but they are bad guys (the awesome Dennis Haysbert being the most notable). The problem is that, unlike those past characters, Dutch requires a bit more than Ford's usual arsenal of facial expressions and monotone speech. Ford has some great looks that he can take on, looks that express exactly what he is thinking; however, the screenplay by Kurt Luedtke is very wordy, needing an actor who can emote his emotions through speech, a la Kevin Spacey. Ford mumbles and grumbles his way through his lines, at times almost unintelligible, and threatens to put the audience to sleep. Kristin Scott Thomas, however, is perfectly capable of getting her character's thoughts out through her words. Thomas has a fragile appearance, and makes you believe it when she gets emotionally hurt. Too bad that her character is out of place. Kay Chandler is supposed to be a Congresswoman seeking re-election, yet she seems to have not learned any of the tricks of the trade. She seems shocked when spin doctor Carl Broman (Pollack) asks her if their is anything "dirty" in her past. What Congressman or -woman could possibly get through a term in office without learning the truths about the media and image? Kay Chandler reminded me at times of a whiny, older version of Cameron Diaz, a strange and distracting comparison. Her reasons for falling for Dutch are never truly explained, and it makes her character lose importance.

    One strange aspect of Random Hearts is the amount of screen time the romance gets. A huge portion of the film is devoted to an unneeded sub-plot involving Dutch (an Internal Affairs cop) tracking some bad cops. His partner Alcee (Dutton) is given nothing interesting to say and so we aren't even given the pleasure of some buddy-cop banter. The rest of the film involves Dutch looking for clues and talking to people who knew his wife, leaving perhaps only 30 minutes for the actual romance. Nothing better symbolizes the poor quality of this romantic pairing than the fact the filmmakers only gave it a third of the film to play out. Unless you are in dire need of sleep, skip this film.

Copyright - Tim Chandler

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