Themes: Air Disasters, Obsessive Quests, Starting Over
Main Cast: Harrison Ford, Kristin Scott Thomas, Charles S. Dutton, Bonnie Hunt, Dennis Haysbert, Sydney Pollack, Richard Jenkins, Paul Guilfoyle, Peter Coyote, Bill Cobbs
Release Year: 1999
Country: US
Run Time: 133 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Two people who've known the pain of loss and the sting of betrayal are brought together under trying circumstances in this romantic drama. Dutch van den Broeck (Harrison Ford) is a police detective based in Washington D.C. whose wife works for an upscale department store; flying to Miami on business, she dies shortly after takeoff in one of the worst aviation disasters in the city's history. However, Dutch finds out that his wife wasn't actually traveling on business: Kay Chandler (Kristin Scott Thomas) is a prominent political figure whose husband was also killed in the crash, and Dutch and Kay discover that their spouses were on the plane together because they were having an affair. Random Hearts was directed by Sydney Pollack, who also worked with Harrison Ford on his previous film, Sabrina. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Chris Shriver - Art Director, David Rubin - Casting, Bernie Pollack - Costume Designer, Ann Roth - Costume Designer, Denis L. Stewart - First Assistant Director, Sydney Pollack - Director, William Steinkamp - Editor, Ronald L. Schwary - Executive Producer, Warren Adler - Executive Producer, Dave Grusin - Composer (Music Score), Barbara Ling - Production Designer, Philippe Rousselot - Cinematographer, Sydney Pollack - Producer, Marykay Powell - Producer, Susan Bode-Tyson - Set Designer, Scott P. Murphy - Set Designer, Danny Michael - Sound/Sound Designer, Robert "Bobby Z" Zajonc - Stunts, Kurt Luedtke - Screenwriter, Darryl Ponicsan - Screenwriter, Warren Adler - Book Author, Robert "Bobby Z" Zajonc - Pilot
The film adaptation loosely follows the story of the novel but many of the characters have been changed. Edward Davis is now Sergeant William 'Dutch' Van Den Broeck, a Washington DC police officer. Vivien Simpson is now Kay Chandler, a wealthy Republican Congresswoman with a teenage daughter. They meet when their spouses, Peyton and Cullen, are killed in a plane crash and realize that they were having an affair. The story evolves around the relationship between the two surviving spouses, as the tragedy envelopes their lives and affects his career as a police officer and her campaign for re-election to Congress.
The film was not a commercial success, budgeted at $64 million, it made $31 million in the US and another $43 million internationally. The film currently holds a 15% approval rating based on 85 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, though several leading critics (such as Janet Maslin of the New York Times, Roger Ebert[1] of the Chicago Sun-Times, and Bob Thomas of the Associated Press) viewed it favorably.
Production History
The film was in "development hell" for quite some years, and Kevin Costner had previously been attached to project in the early 1990s.
Primary cast
Harrison Ford : Sergeant William 'Dutch' Van Den Broeck
