Customer Reviews

Random Hearts [Import]

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(30)

 

 

We just saw this dvd in tv for the second time in 2 years. The first time we saw it we saw it with great apreciation, the second time, we were so glad for the oportunity to see it again, reaping the same amount of pleasure once more, so much so, that we went into internet to find a dvd, Amazon of course.
At the same time we looked at reviews, here and there, and were shocked to find hardly anyone likes this film. Astonishing indeed!
Ford, as always, true to the role, perfect; the woman Thomas was superb, (we knew her from English Patient). Sooo much feeling! Pollack, what more can one ask for. How complex you americans are sometimes. Astonishing!

I loved this movie with its reflective ambience. The music was beautiful, the acting excellent, and I appreciate its subtleties more each time I watch it.

To Harrison, Kristen, and Sidney: ignore the jaded critics and impatient whiners clamoring for their next adrenaline fix - you have produced a marvelous work.
Unfortunately, the box-office scorecard ($) rules when it comes to sequels.

(I own the DVD and intend to buy the soundtrack CD)

I like this movie. I don't care much about what the critics said about it, nor about its failure to top box office records. I found this movie a psychologically intense drama, and I think acting was very good. Ford portrayed a clearly distraught and somewhat depressed and distracted man who lost his wife in plane crush, and who find out that his wife was cheating on him. He comes in contact with another "survivor," a Congresswoman who lost her husband in the same plane crush. A somewhat unlikely romance develops, while Ford's character continues to be haunted by his wife's betrayal. The subplot, involving a corrupt cop and murder, could be improved--it almost gets in the way of the main storyline. But if you can get beyond this, you will enjoy the movie.

If you are into non-stop action, special effects pictures, this one is not for you. But if you can enjoy a mature film with a real plot, you will do well to see "Random Hearts."

This is a movie that you can invite your friends over and make fun. I am a HUGE Harrison Ford fan, but he looked ridiculous in this movie. He definitely was not ready for his close up - There is a close up of him that will make you cringe (earring, dyed hair and all), for he looks every bit his 60-something age. - playing a top cop no less. Kristen Scott Thomas seemed to be in another movie, slipping in and out of an English accent. The music was shockingly dopey. There was NO chemistry between them. The plot and subplot tedious. Need I go on! View for the giggles. Gave two stars for this reason alone.

This movie is very dark and unrelentlessly depressing, but it is worth watching one time because of Kristen Scott Thomas's performance. She is great at playing the part of an emotionally repressed widow who has found out her husband was having an affair. I think it is good that a movie has been made that is trying to be different from all the other movies currently being made, but this movie is just not very good. The whole storyline about the dirty cop that Harrison Ford is trying to track down just doesn't blend with the movie, and it made absolutely no sense in the movie. I hope a better movie dealing with an unusual romance will be made.

It is apparent from the wide range of responses to this movie that its intention and meaning is insufficiently defined. Much of the blame here must go to Harrison Ford and whoever cast him. (He reached his peak in American Graffiti. His career constitutes absolute proof of H. L. Mencken's maxim that no one every went broke underestimating the taste of the American public-and he could have added the American Academy of Motion Pictures.) The central theme of the movie could be uncontrollable suspicion and unhealable scars resulting from the trauma of spousal betrayal OR it could be redemption through a human connection resulting from two people having had a common life-changing experience. Ford, with his two-expression range (dumb and befuddled intermixed with an occasional twisted pseudo-smile), is simply unable to portray either. He never really connects with Thomas (who does her usual superb job), he just doggedly goes about pursuing the details of his dead wife's affair while looking confused and sullen, whereas the movie needed a male lead who could speak clearly without words. It is interesting to speculate on the oucome had Ford's character been played by someone appropriate, say Russell Crow, Brad Pitt, Daniel Day Lewis, or Al Pacino.

Nonetheless, the issue addressed is not superficial and could even be profound. Consequently, I believe that this film had considerable potential, and despite Ford's incompetence, for that reason, has some value.

This movie is the reason there should be ZERO STAR rating at Amazon. I am quite sure Random Hearts is the worst movie I've ever seen. Certainly the worst movie ever made with a mega-star like Harrison Ford.

Uninspired script, frenetic story line, pathetic performances all combine to make the audience wish that ALL of the characters had gone down in the plane crash together and spared us all the next two hours of agony. I really feel like I wasted part of my life watching this one. But I must admit, it's kinda fun to hate it so much.

Great movie, super acting, rugged story. The plot starts in one of those improbable and tragic twists of fate that leaves two relatively naive spouses suddenly window/widower. And for awhile their pain gets worse as they discover that although they'd never met, their spouses were lovers.

I like "they lived happily ever after" movies, but this isn't one of them. Nevertheless, the ending is real and the path of emotional ups, downs, frustrations and victories for Ford and Scott Thomas leaves the viewer with a feeling of substantial healing without a phony fairytale ending.

A little longer movie than some, and not for the cell-phone, swizzle-stick crowd as the priorities of the faster, better, bigger, louder crowd are subtly scorned as the pair learns to cherish what is truly important in the present - not in the future, or the past. Well worth watching, particularly in view Random Heart's minimal endorsement but the movie critics - since I rarely agree with `em, that's a vote of confidence in my book.

I've been watching Harrison Ford movies for 24 years (since Star Wars). I had never seen a Harrison Ford movie that I did not like -- until now. I just finished viewing this turkey of a film and feel very let down.

The movie is quite long, about 2.25 hours. For the first couple of hours everything appears to be going along fine. To be sure, it is very heavily melancholic, but I got the impression that I was watching a masterful suspense thriller building and building, so I was patient. When the film reached the 2 hour mark I started getting suspicious that there wasn't going to be any climax. Yep. The darn thing just ended, with no ending, leaving me holding the bag.

What in the world were the makers of this movie thinking? Do they really think that people want to spend more than 2 hours watching people's gut-wrenching and then have them walk away? Do they think people want to be suckered in for more than 2 hours while they pretend this is a suspense/thriller movie and then just have the main characters give up and go home?

Geez. If that's all they wanted to do they should have made the film no longer than an hour and a half and let me get back to my life faster.

Harrison Ford's performance was good, as always, but since I had just seen Frantic last month, his performance looked like a carbon copy. At least Frantic had a real ending.

If you're a die hard Harrison Ford fan you may still want to check this movie out -- just don't start with any expectations, then maybe you won't be as disappointed as I was.

Oh, how I looked forward to this movie before is was released. Two of my favorite stars and one of my favorite directors. Who could ask for more? As it turns out, I could ask for a lot more.

Random Hearts starts off well. Dutch Van Der Broeek [Harrison Ford] and Kay Chandler [Kristin Scott Thomas] have never met. Their spouses certainly have. They are having an affair. One morning they take a flight to Miami. Dutch and Kay are worry-free, because they have not been told the truth. So when the plane crashes shortly after takeoff , killing everyone on board, Dutch and Kay go about their mundane daily business. News reports flash everywhere, but what has it to do with them? Everything, as it turns out.

Dutch is an undercover policeman, and when he finds out his wife was traveling under the name of Mrs. Peyton Chandler, he goes on a quest to find out about the length and duration of the affair. At first, Kay, who is a Congresswoman running for reelection, wants nothing to do with him. After much persistence, she joins him on a search for answers that can never be found. Along the way, they also fall for each other.

Random Hearts is probably a well-meaning attempt at examining the grief process. It has so many problems that that examination never works. For one thing, this is one of the grimmest, most humorless movies I have seen in a long, long time. I should think that a veteran director like Sidney Pollock would know that, when the subject is heavy, you've got to crack a joke or two along the way to relieve the audience's stress. At least there should be a couple of characters who doesn't need Prozac. This is especially true about a movie that runs nearly two and a half hours.

I think the intention was to make the film poignant. Harrison Ford's performance prevents its becoming this. He is unbelievably awkward in his love scenes with Kristin Scott Thomas. I can't imagine that he's a bad lover, so I can only assume that this was his interpretation of the character. His sour-faced, awkward attempts at intimacy make it hard to believe that Kaye would want him much, if at all. Scott Thomas handles her role with aplomb, although her English accent creeps in now and then.

There is a subplot involving Dutch's undercover work. Except for a moment near the movie's climax, it has nothing to do with the plot. Sadly, it's a lot more interesting than the rest of the movie....