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Starring Harrison Ford, Kristin Scott Thomas, Charles Dutton, Sydney Pollack, Bonnie Hunt, Dylan
Baker, Dennis Haysbert, Richard Jenkins. Produced and Directed by Sydney Pollack.
Dutch Van Den Broeck (Ford) is a Washington D.C. internal affairs cop, working on bringing down a bad cop (Haysbert) shaking down people in the projects, with the help of his loyal partner (Dutton). Kay Spencer-Chandler (Scott Thomas) is a congresswoman from New Hampshire working on her re-election with a new back-room spinmeister (Pollack) and her tried and true advisor (Jenkins). Both find out their spouses were on a plane to Miami which crashed, killing both spouses and everyone else on the plane. Dutch discovers they were sitting together, and were flying under Kay's husband's name. Dutch meets Kay and tells her about the affair, but she doesn't want to know about it. She's more concerned with keeping the information from the press and especially her daughter, than her husband actually being dead. But Dutch can't let it go, hoping to find out why, and for how long the affair had been going on. Eventually, Kay gets curious and joins Dutch on a trip to Miami and they see where their spouses were planning to go. On their return, they begin an affair, both feeling each is the only person who can understand what the other is going through. But there lives become complicated, and their relationship, and what that relationship means, is tested. The first part of the film begins well, with solid exposition of each of Dutch's and Kay's personal lives, and the way in which each learns of the tragedy, their coming to terms with the crash, and their realization that their spouses were cheating, and their lives were a lie. But when the romance begins, the plot becomes unbelievable. Their first encounter in the car, ostensibly two souls feeling lonely and betrayed turning to each other, is outrageously and laughably over the top. We learn earlier her wealthy opponent is out digging up dirt on her, but she meets, phones and talks to Dutch without regard to what others, including her newly bereaved daughter who she supposedly is concerned so much about, might think about it. And the ending is a huge letdown, where things are contrived to bring a certain electoral result, and but Dutch and Kay's future is left unnecessarily hanging. The film is too long, going well over 2 1/4 hours, primarily because the story focuses on too many unnecessary details, such as the long leadup to the identification of the bodies. Some of the subplots are unnecessary and distracting to the main story, especially the prolonged investigation of the bad cops. The pacing is slow and deliberate, and the cool and reserved acting styles of the leads rob the film of badly needed energy. Harrison Ford can be quite good, especially when he's playing a rogue character, such as a certain starship pilot. But when he's called upon to be a righteous but angry cop or some such person, he often turns wooden and unexpressive. This is the case here. The few cases of good one liners and humour are lost in his consistently expressionless delivery. Scott Thomas specializes in playing cool, classy women, and she's is often good here. Both bring a mature and adult feeling to the film. There is some chemistry between the two, but not much. And that makes this very unlikely coupling even less plausible. Pollack himself brings energy to the film whenever he's on the screen as the cynical, all-business political operative. Random Hearts is not really a bad film, it's just that it loses its way part way through, and takes a long time to get to its unsatisfactory end. If you wish to see an adult film, try American Beauty instead.  
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