Random Hearts

Starring:Dylan Baker, Christina Chang, Bill Cobbs, Peter Coyote, Charles S. Dutton, Susan Floyd, Harrison Ford, Paul Guilfoyle (II), Dennis Haysbert, Bonnie Hunt, Michelle Hurd, Richard Jenkins, Nelson Landrieu, Kate Mara, Kristin Scott Thomas, Brooke Smith, Lynne Thigpen, Ariana Thomas, Susanna Thompson
Studio: Sony Pictures
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
Reviled by critics and largely ignored by moviegoers when released in 1999, Random Hearts is a pox on the reputations of Harrison Ford, Kristin Scott Thomas, and director Sydney Pollack, but it doesn't entirely deserve its lowly fate. The movie's lugubriously paced and its repressed passions are dulled under the weight of relentless melancholy, but Pollack deserves credit for defying the Hollywood Zeitgeist with a mature, substantial film about the power of betrayal to reach beyond the grave.

Ford plays a Washington, D.C. detective; Scott Thomas is a Congresswoman in the midst of a re-election campaign. When their spouses die in a plane crash, the cop is convinced they'd been having an affair, and his obsessive, masochistic quest for the painful truth draws him closer to the Congresswoman despite the mutual risks to their careers and domestic privacy. While she hides behind a faÃ§ade of denial, his agonized investigation makes him simultaneously unappealing (a risk Ford may have taken as a challenge), sympathetic, and sadly compelling.

Amazon.com

Reviled by critics and largely ignored by moviegoers when released in 1999, Random Hearts is a pox on the reputations of Harrison Ford, Kristin Scott Thomas, and director Sydney Pollack, but it doesn't entirely deserve its lowly fate. The movie's lugubriously paced and its repressed passions are dulled under the weight of relentless melancholy, but Pollack deserves credit for defying the Hollywood Zeitgeist with a mature, substantial film about the power of betrayal to reach beyond the grave.

Ford plays a Washington, D.C. detective; Scott Thomas is a Congresswoman in the midst of a re-election campaign. When their spouses die in a plane crash, the cop is convinced they'd been having an affair, and his obsessive, masochistic quest for the painful truth draws him closer to the Congresswoman despite the mutual risks to their careers and domestic privacy. While she hides behind a façade of denial, his agonized investigation makes him simultaneously unappealing (a risk Ford may have taken as a challenge), sympathetic, and sadly compelling.

Pollack takes his own chances by keeping everything so relentlessly downbeat, but anyone receptive to the story will find that Random Hearts is a subtly rewarding study of tormented adults who've discovered too late the weaknesses of their seemingly stable marriages. It's anything but cheerful, and a subplot involving a corrupt cop (Dennis Haysbert) is a formulaic distraction. But Random Hearts provides welcome relief from dramas that flirt with emotional anguish without delving into its deeper consequences. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews:

Yes, it's depressing-that's what's great about it........2006-09-26

It's also honest-something people avoid if things might get messy. People cheat-it happens every day. The lighting, music and slow pacing only accentuate the melacholy mood of the film. I love depressing movies-music too. There's no escaping the truth for these characters. It's painful. Betrayal always is-eventually. If you don't like depressing stuff, this movie will turn you off-even if you like the leads. Pollack's direction is perfect for the material-something I imagine he did on purpose. This is adult material-it's just that adults don't usually like to deal with difficult issues.

The two weak points of the film are the side story and the romance. The friendship between the two leads is believable-the romance is not. However, the film is so dreary that even these two items don't take away from the film's power. Marrying someone is no guarantee of fidelity. There is a darkness about humans that lies in their desire to please themselves-even at the cost of hurting the one they love most. That, and you will never really know the darkest recesses of the one you love 'til they rip your heart out and leave you "in the shadow of the light from a black sun".

disappointment!!.......2006-08-31

I thought this movie was a big disappointment. Harrison Ford plays a widow who finds out his wife was on a plane with her lover when they both die in the crash. He wants to know why his wife had an affair and how could she have lied to him and how long and how serious...blah, blah. All he did was whine the entire movie. Also, he plays a police officer and not a very good one. This movie lacked substance and character.

A real gem.......2006-08-19

I really liked the movie and I don't understand why some people didn't like it. It shows the true emotions inside us and how we can be moved by extraordinary events in life. Harrison Ford is a gem of an actor. I also liked the acting of others. I think I'll watch it again.

Slow in parts, crummy ending... .......2006-07-30

This is split down the middle for me. I didn't like the excess crime scenes; they weren't that interesting and I couldn't really understand them. Yet what happens to Dutch after he crosses the line with a suspect...I had a feeling it would happen. It could've been worse, but luckily, it wasn't.

Everyone is okay at the end, but it's still disappointing. I wish there had been a happier ending, but the movie ends on a bittersweet note. Too bad.

Duo Noir.......2006-04-15

Random Hearts was a difficult film for me to enjoy. It was so heart-wrenching to watch as two basically nice people are blind-sided by circumstance and painfully drawn to each other as if they had no other choice. It was not my notion of `fun.'

Sydney Pollack's work seems to be well cast in both its primary and secondary roles. I'm a fan of most all these people. Harrison Ford is "Dutch" Van Den Broeck, a D.C. police sergeant with Internal Affairs. Kristin Scott Thomas is New Hampshire Congresswoman Kay Chandler. Charlie Dutton, Dennis Haysbert, Richard Jenkins, and Mr Pollack himself fill a few of the lesser and -- except for maybe Dutton as Alcee-mainly disinteresting roles. Outside of Alcee and Kay, it was difficult to care about anyone in this film.

Despite the beautiful color, this is a film noir after the style of the 30s-50s. It does have more action and outdoor sequences which really require the color but, with some judicious re-writing, this could have been a brilliant piece in Black and White. The darkness of it all is emphasized by the arcane Jazz undertones in the musical score.

Van Den Broeck's wife and Chandler's husband are killed in a plane crash. Apparently, they were on their way to Miami together and had probably done this before. There are more questions than answers as Dutch and Kay deal with the shock of their respective spouse's deaths. They contort emotionally with stunned, angry and hurt feelings within as they slowly unravel the affair.

Both principals look for answers in their own way. Kay wants to drop it, forget it and move on, hopefully protecting her daughter and the dignity of her office along the way. Dutch would like to know more about the dead couple: how they met, their plans, their secretive interest in the Tango, etc.

There are sub-plots that, for me, totally got in the way. The police story seems pointless but I suppose that it's necessary to balance with the equally banal re-election race. Both provide context and perhaps help to move the action along. Maybe they are also supposed to remind us that life continues, however roughed-up we might be.

There are three lines that I find particularly significant. Two are made by Kay, the first when she goes to be with Dutch at his cabin on the inlet just off Chesapeake Bay:

"I'm not going to make any small talk, `cause I don't want there to be junk between us."

The second after Dutch is shot by a rogue cop (Haysbert) and lies in Hospital recovering:

"We did OK Dutch. We did the best we could under the circumstances."

The third line belongs to Dutch and is addressed to Kay earlier in the film:

"What's the last thing that you remember about you and your husband that you know was true?"

Lines don't have to be magisterial to be meaningful. These are minimal but quite good. There are some others as well. (I'm also partial to "Don't! Just Drive.")

I know the movie ran a bit long but I think there should have been more footage in the forest. It was so lovely.

After consultation with myself, Two Stars. It would have been Three if he'd gotten the girl.

Russell de Ville
14 April 2006

Average customer rating:

another winner
Winter. Spring. Snow in April.

April Snow (2005)
Director: Heo jin Ho
Manufacturer: Panorama Entertainment (HK)
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Hotelier
Papa (Korean Drama 18 Episodes)
Korean Drama~ Autumn in My Heart
Summer Scent
Untold Scandal

Product Features:

Standard Edition
1 disc package (all region ntsc)

ASIN: B000FVEAN2

Product Description

"April Snow," directed by Heo Jin-ho, adopts the same melodrama formula of "Winter Sonata," a runaway television hit series that touched off the boom for Korean pop culture, and, more importantly, catapulted actor Bae Yong-joon into almost mythical fame in Asia. The original Korean title of the movie is "Oechul," roughly translating into "Outing." Its English title "April Snow," however, is much more closely related to the movie's core idea. In Korea, it's quite rare to see snow falling in April, so the title suggests a hopeful message that something miraculous might soothe an ill-fated couple and consummate their Forbidden Love.

Customer Reviews:

another winner.......2007-04-16

once you are used to korean romance and those great actors, you'd never go back to japanese drama or romance. because the screenplay were with better dialogs that made actors to act naturally and not too pretentious. japanese movies now are all looked too pretentious and exaggerate with bad dialogged screenplays. this 'april snow' is another beautifully shot and performed romance. an cheating adultery turned into a unpredictable tragedy that forced victimized husband and the wife encountered in the hospital. then the embarrassed situation gradually evolved into a romance, an heart-broken romance. well directed and shot. another winner if you like romance korean style.

Winter. Spring. Snow in April........2006-07-26

I remember it snowed once in April when I was little. We usually get snow storms every year in New York. But there was one year, after the February snows had finally melted and Spring was just coming in, that we had a surprise snow storm. The snow lasted until the very beginning of May that year.

*******(May contain spoilers)*******

Borrowing a theme similar to Harrison Ford's "Random Hearts", we have Bae Yong-jun (In-su) and Son Ye-jin (Seo-yung) as two married individuals whose spouses have been involved in a tragic car accident. While the other driver is killed and their spouses are in a comatose state and it doesn't take long for In-su and Seo-yung to discover that his wife and her husband were having an affair. What follows is the realization that their assumed happy marriages weren't as perfect as they thought it was. The deliberately slow progression of the story mirrors a more true to life passage of time. We see the daily visits of In-su and Seo-yung as they try to care for their injured loved ones and at the same time try to understand why they did, what they did. They question their own worth to the other person and can find little to satisfy their confusion.

Whether their marriages will survive is not just related to how quickly or if the spouses will heal, but also to why they strayed in the first place. The hurt of the betrayal follows In-su and Seo-yung in their daily activities. As the wronged wife, Seo-yung explains, at least when he wakes up, she'll get an explanation. Thrown together with In-su in their mutual suffering, they come to care for each other, lean on each other for support. When Seo-yung jokingly says they should have an affair of their own as revenge, it doesn't seem to far fetched an idea. Through the extradinary of circumstance of their spouses accident, they came together. But it is because of their pain, their confusion, their need to feel wanted, that they choose to remain close.

I have only just started watching Korean films. So far I have seen roughly four and I have enjoyed all of them very much. Finding them readily available is a different matter. Either I have to go through Ebay, or purchase them through an amazon seller since they are a bit difficult to obtain. Just recently I read somewhere they have re-released this film in Japan with an additional twenty or thirty minutes. When will that extended version be available here?

The soundtrack is haunting in it's melodies. I have found the more classical themed compositions better suited and a excellent companion to enrich the storyline. If only they were easy to find. The only reason I gave this film four stars instead of five is because it was short, clocking in at 1 hour, 43 min. I wanted more.

Average customer rating:

Yes, it's depressing-that's what's great about it.
disappointment!!
A real gem
Slow in parts, crummy ending...
Duo Noir

Random Hearts [Region 2]

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

( R ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Six Days, Seven Nights
Presumed Innocent
What Lies Beneath
Regarding Henry
Working Girl

ASIN: B00004TZU8

Amazon.com

Ford plays a Washington, D.C. detective; Scott Thomas is a Congresswoman in the midst of a re-election campaign. When their spouses die in a plane crash, the cop is convinced they'd been having an affair, and his obsessive, masochistic quest for the painful truth draws him closer to the Congresswoman despite the mutual risks to their careers and domestic privacy. While she hides behind a façade of denial, his agonized investigation makes him simultaneously unappealing (a risk Ford may have taken as a challenge), sympathetic, and sadly compelling.

Customer Reviews:

Yes, it's depressing-that's what's great about it........2006-09-26

disappointment!!.......2006-08-31

A real gem.......2006-08-19

Slow in parts, crummy ending... .......2006-07-30

Duo Noir.......2006-04-15

April Snow (The Documentary) DVD + Photo Album

Average customer rating:

April Snow (The Documentary) DVD + Photo Album
Director: Heo Jin Ho
Manufacturer: Universal Pictures (Korea)
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Collectibles | Categories |
Product Features:

1 disc package (region 1 2 3 NTSC)
32 page booklet
Housed Deluxe Case
Deleted Scenes
Interviews & Production Notes

ASIN: B000S0DJFU

Product Description

Son Yae Jin, star of such audience favorites as A Moment to Remember and The Classic, and Korean heartthrob Bae Yong Joon (from the TV series Winter Sonata and Untold Scandal) have been cast for Hur Jin Ho's (Christmas in August, One Fine Spring Day) latest blockbuster. The story revolves around a man and a woman who have been dumped by their partners and fall in love with each other. This special feature DVD offers fans interviews with the movie's director and stars, an exclusive photo album and much more!

Average customer rating:

Yes, it's depressing-that's what's great about it.
disappointment!!
A real gem
Slow in parts, crummy ending...
Duo Noir

Random Hearts [Region 2]

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

( R ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Six Days, Seven Nights
Presumed Innocent
What Lies Beneath
Regarding Henry
Working Girl

ASIN: B00004S31T

Amazon.com

Ford plays a Washington, D.C. detective; Scott Thomas is a Congresswoman in the midst of a re-election campaign. When their spouses die in a plane crash, the cop is convinced they'd been having an affair, and his obsessive, masochistic quest for the painful truth draws him closer to the Congresswoman despite the mutual risks to their careers and domestic privacy. While she hides behind a façade of denial, his agonized investigation makes him simultaneously unappealing (a risk Ford may have taken as a challenge), sympathetic, and sadly compelling.

Customer Reviews:

Yes, it's depressing-that's what's great about it........2006-09-26

disappointment!!.......2006-08-31

A real gem.......2006-08-19

Slow in parts, crummy ending... .......2006-07-30

Duo Noir.......2006-04-15

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