Random Hearts
Harrison Ford’s abilities as a leading man have never been in question; however he is not acting to the best of his ability in Random Hearts. The crooked grin that made Han Solo famous makes its first appearance in the last five minutes of the film and Ford never makes use of his skills at playing a gruff yet lovable character. Dutch Van Den Broeck is gruff, but to the point of annoyance. He is actually a rather creepy and unlovable character.
This film is not very memorable. The main characters are shown with their spouses, the spouses die and oh-my-gosh they were having an affair, so Ford and Kristen Scott Thomas somehow end up together. How this happens is a question few can answer; on second she is having a nervous breakdown, the next they’re making out in the front seat of her car, in restricted parking no less. To its credit, the scene conveys the cramped feeling of the automobile and an extreme awkwardness that did not feel appropriate. If these two are meant to be together, why do they always look like they have no feelings behind their actions?
Random Hearts is yet another movie that has fallen into the “too long” category. People used to walk into a theater knowing they’d be there for roughly 90 minutes. Now 90-minute films are the rarity, with most films clocking in at about 120. Three-hour movies are no longer gawked at and two-hour movies are watched without blinking.
Random Hearts would have benefited from being about an hour shorter. The characters are boring, the plot is contrived, and nobody is rooting for the main players to get together in the end. If anything, Dutch should have been committed to a mental hospital before he started attacking strangers on the street.
Kristen Scott Thomas plays her character well, but Kay Chandler is two-dimensional and so cookie-cutter that she’s impossible to like. She’s daddy’s little girl, running for re-election to his former seat in Congress. She doesn’t want to get involved in the political mudslinging that her opponent delightfully uses. She thinks her husband is perfect until his death, she doesn’t want her daughter involved in the election and she doesn’t know why she’s falling in love with Dutch. Blah, blah, blah, we’ve heard it all before.
The movie’s “climax” could be seen coming for miles and is the most anticlimactic thing theaters have seen in ages. The film was advertised with the tagline, “In a perfect world…they never would have met.” In a perfect world, this film never would have been made.
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