Les hasards du coeur

Random Hearts: Losing a significant other is a subject most people would rather not think about. Now, try to imagine this agony exacerbated by the knowledge that your spouse was headed for an illicit rendezvous when they died: the combination of grief and betrayal is simply too overwhelming to comprehend. This is what confronts Dutch Van Den Broeck (Harrison Ford) a hard-nosed cop with DC Internal Affairs and Kay Chandler (Kristin Scott Thomas) a US Congresswoman, when their cheating spouses are killed in a plane crash.

With heavy hitters Ford and Thomas on the Marquee, and the subject matter in question, I expected a well crafted, intriguing movie, or at the very least, an entertaining one. If only it were so. Hearts suffers from a flat, poorly written script, with corny formulaic dialogue - several "touching" moments left the audience in hysterics - leaving the actors with little too work with. The problems don't end there.

From its inception this movie was obviously intended as a romantic drama. I can only assume that the subplot involving an investigation of a duo of dirty cops was added as an afterthought to secure the ever-important 18-35 male demographic. The result is a quixotic mess: every time the movie begins to flow and find its legs, it veers off on a tangent, until you longer care what happens.

When the credits finally started rolling after 133 minutes I was positively exhausted. Unless you've seen all the movies that are currently out or are desperate for a pseudo date flick, give this a miss.

**SPOILERS** Overlong and somewhat confusing drama involving an airplane crash, Southern Airline flight from D.C to Miami, where two of the crash victims were cheating on their spouses.

It's not much later that one of those being cheated on Washington D.C internal affair police Sgt. Dutch Van Den Broeck, Harrison Ford, got wind from her job that his old lady Peyton, Susanna Thompson, was on a flight to Miami to do a fashion shoot for her employer Sacks 5th Av of Washington D.C. Desperately trying to find out if Peyton was on the doomed flight Ducth not only finds out that she was, through a morgue photo at the crash site, but she was using an assumed name! Peyton was using the name of the wife of the person that booked the flight Cullen Chandler, Peter Coyote. Things get even more strange when it's discovered that the late Mr. Chandler's wife, who he's been cheating on, is non other then New Hampshire congresswoman Kay Chandler, Kristin Scott Thomas, who's now in a life and death campaign for reelection!

The movie brings the two, Dutch & Kay, together in finding if in fact it's true that they were being cheated on by their marriage partners. And in the process they end up falling in love with each other! If it was just that the film "Random Hearts" would have made for a pretty good adult love story. Instead by putting into the film murder drug dealing both police corruption and political chicanery the movie at times was almost impossible to follow!

Dutch who should have taken a leave of absent from the D.C Police Department in order for him to overcome his grief goes the exact opposite direction. Instead he goes full blast in busting fellow D.C cop George Beauford, Dennis Haysbert, for drug dealing by him getting, which is very unprofessional on Dutch's part, very personal about it. This not only leads to Dutch's top informant to get murdered but Dutch almost ending up murdered himself! Or at the least losing his job or being put behind bars for taking the law into his own hands! All of this together with Dutch trying to find out if his wife Peyton was untrue to him seemed too much for the poor guy to handle. As for Kay she had far more pressing problems in the fact if her dead husband's infidelity became public it could very well screw her out of a second term in the US Congress!

***SPOILERS*** With the film being much too long, 133 minutes, as well as complicated and confusing you completely lose interest in it at about the one hour mark! It takes a while to realize what exactly Dutch & Kay are so desperately looking for, their cheating partners secret love nest, and when they, independent of each other, finally find it what was the big shocking surprise anyway! It only proved to Dutch & Kay, what we in the audience knew all along, what should have been obvious to them right from the very beginning of the movie!

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.

Just trying to help bringing things in the balance, which won't work anyway when I see all the negative reactions.

Random Hearts is a movie with a very human, but complex theme. Two people meeting each other after their loved ones have died in a plane crash. Then they discover that both of them have had an affair. Coincidence, the affair of Dutch Van den Broeck's wife was with the husband of congress member Kay Chandler. Both character are brilliantly performed by Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas. They have very different ways in dealing with this issue.

Van den Broeck, being a policeman, who never suspected that his wife was having an affair (the movie starts with her inviting him to bed), just wants to know why... ("When was the last time that she spoke the truth to me") Kay Chandler wants to get rid of the thought as soon as possible and tries to concentrate on her job, being elected to congress again, and her daughter ("She must not know what her father has done"). They meet each other in Dutch's search for the truth.

While going through a very difficult time of accepting and dealing with their partner's death and adultery, both Key and Dutch grow towards each other. This is pictured very intensely and beautifully. Kay states is beautifully in the interview she gives in the hospital when Dutch has bee shot, "We are friends, but because of what we have gone through together, we are now more than friends, we are survivors".

There is no real why for the adultery, as Dutch discovers when listening to the voice-mail of the telephone in the apartment that was used for the adultery, when Peyton Van den Broeck says, "Why are we doing what we are doing?".

I don't see why people cannot just enjoy this very intense movie and they think it is a dull and horrible movie. OK, the end was a bit disappointing, but that was probably because I was under the impression that I was watching a romance and romances must have a certain ending. I think, however, psychological drama, may be a more fitting description of this movie.

One thing is for sure: I came into the cinema when the movie started and when the movie ended I went out of the cinema again. In between I was so taken by the beauty of the movie and the intenseness of the development in the two main characters that I just hadn't noticed how much time had gone by.

Random Hearts snuck up on me. Criticized for the implausibility of a) the premise and b) the pairing of an IA cop and a Congresswoman, as well as for its slowness, the film felt just fine to me , and even ended up being surprisingly absorbing. I found my interest engaged as the film cut back and forth between Ford's and Thomas's lives as they first found out about, and dealt in very different ways in very different environments with, their spouses' deaths and the subsequent revelation that they were involved with other people. It could happen; two people's philandering spouses could be on the same plane, the plane could go down, the survivors could be brought together by the aftermath. So what if it's improbable? Improbable is not the same as far-fetched. So..what if it did happen? Why not speculate?

Ford's and Thomas's performances are believable and nuanced. Instead of finding their coupling implausible (opposite sides of the tracks--give me a break) I felt it driven by a grief and betrayal neither party knew how to deal with. The script does not bring them together too soon or too easily, and the end of the film does not resolve their relationship conventionally, either. Where I find it unsatisfying is when the dialogue brings up interesting wrinkles in or insights into the ramifications of the situation, personal and professional, but never seems to pursue any of them very far. And if you make the mistake of thinking about it too hard, Harrison Ford does seem about 10 years too old for the part.

For five and a half bucks at Wal-Mart, with full length director commentary and behind-the-scenes featurette, the DVD is well worth owning. I don't think I would pay $20 for it on a bet, but my wife might. OK, ten...