Review: Random Hearts

There's a scene in Random Hearts that has actors Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas walking into a Miami nightclub and staring - eyes wide, mouths agape - at the heated gyrations of the tango dancers. The actors' expressions seem to say: "We can't hope to match their sizzle." How true, how true. Ford and Scott Thomas do generate small, concentrated amounts of chemistry but it's not enough to salvage the film's sluggish pace.

Note that it takes over an hour for their romance to actually even begin. What does director Sydney Pollack do in the meantime? He sets up the plot but the exposition is interminable. Dutch Van Den Broeck (Ford) is a sergeant in the Internal Affairs Division of the Washington, D.C. police department. He and his partner Alcee (an underused Charles S. Dutton) are currently investigating a corrupt cop. Dutch is married.

Kay Chandler (Scott Thomas) is a New Hampshire congresswoman running for re-election, hoping this time she will win on her own merit and not because she is a politician's daughter. Her advisors keep warning her that the campaign could get ugly - if she has any skeletons in her closet, she better make sure they can't be unearthed. She is married and the mother of a teenager.

Dutch and Kay cross each other's paths when a plane destined for Miami goes down instead and claims the lives of their spouses. At first, neither Dutch nor Kay can understand it. Her husband told her he was going to New York. His wife did say she was going to Miami to supervise a photo shoot but her name wasn't on the passenger list and her coworkers don't remember any plans for a photo shoot. Dutch realizes what Kay must know but prefers to disbelieve: his wife and her husband weren't randomly seated next to one another. They were conducting an affair.

But for how long? How many times were they meeting? How did it all begin? These are the questions reeling through Dutch's mind and he's determined to have them answered. Kay, meanwhile, wants nothing to do with it. She just wants to move on with her life and protect her daughter. "You want to know why and there is no why," Kay tells Dutch. Yet he somehow piques her curiosity and soon the two form a growing attraction to one another.

Because of the lengthy set-up, the intriguing story never becomes involving. There are too many distractions - his investigation of the corrupt cop, her re-election - which take too much away from the romance. When Pollack and screenwriter Kurt Luedtke, working from Darryl Ponicsan's adaptation of Warren Adler's novel, do finally focus on the complexities of Dutch and Kay's romance, the audience finally has something to latch onto. Can Kay and Dutch create a relationship that is uninhabited by the specter of their spouses' affair? Kay senses Dutch may not be willing to accept not knowing the answers to his questions. Dutch is intent on solving this case of adultery and it's satisfying to watch Ford unravel as much as he allows himself to. You sense he wants to do more, but there's a restraint which permeates the film.

Random Hearts gives the impression that it's about to reveal more or become more, but it never does. It's a classy production and Pollack has assembled all the best people - two Academy Award-nominated actors, a faultless supporting cast, cinematographer Philippe Rousselot, composer Dave Grusin - but the substance that breaks through the gloss amounts to very little.

Random Hearts

Directed by: Sydney Pollack

Written by: Darryl Ponicsan, Kurt Luedtke; based on the novel by Warren Adler

Starring: Harrison Ford, Kristin Scott Thomas, Charles S. Dutton, Dennis Haysbert, Bonnie Hunt, Sydney Pollack, Richard Jenkins, Paul Guilfoyle, Susanna Thompson, Peter Coyote, Dylan Baker, Kate Mara