Random Hearts - Collector's Edition

Based on the novel by Warren Adler, we are thrown into the lives of two couples who are about to cross paths after a plane crash reveals more than is initially led on.

Internal Affairs Sergant, Dutch Van Den Broeck (Harrison Ford) and his wife (Susanna Thompson) start their day of as all lovers do whilst Congress woman Kay Chandler (Kristin Scott Thomas) farewells her husband (Peter Coyote) who's leaving for a 2 day business trip to New York. A few hours later, Dutchs wife and Kays husband are found dead in first class when their 737 plane to Miami crashes in the bay.

From here, Dutch tries to find out why his wife would cheat on him and Kay continues her campaign for re-election. Kay can't let her personal life interfere with her campaign but as Dutch investigates further, he gets closer to Kay making it harder for her to keep her personal life and problems, personal.

This is an exceptional transfer from Columbia. I have a feeling their latest batch has some extra effort put into the compressionists work, but it could be that their previous batch was not of great source quality to begin with.

There is a real obvious sharpness present here giving an abundance of detail. On closer inspection there is an apparent use of edge-enhancement which gives the image a faux presentation that will become prominent on bigger screens. Edge enhancement should NOT be needed if the hi-def transfer retains sharpness from the outset.

Black level is excellent with good shadow detail making it easier on the eyes focusing on the image during the darker scenes. Utilising a dual layered disc and higher bit-rate reduces the chances of any mpeg artifacting and such is the case here.

Despite the lack of a .1 channel in the mix, this is a great soundtrack that gets pretty active at times, from all directions.

From the opening scenes on the airport runways we are treated to a an incredible ambient presence that still supplies enough low frequencies from the remaning 5 channels to keep you happy. Skip forward a few chapters and the ambience in the soundtrack is amazing for such a genre of movie. There is ALWAYS something present in the rears.

Dialogue is consistently clear throughout and even jumps up a few db at times when the soundtrack gets active. A highlight is also the musical soundtrack by great jazz musician Dave Grusin. If you've ever purchased any of his dts CD's then you'd know the style of sound he can produce and it suits the film perfectly.

Being a Collector's Edition, you'd expect a fair few tidbits other than the movie itself and you get them:

• Directors Commentary - Sydney Pollack provides a great commentary on each key scene and the intended buildup he portrayed in the movie. He comes across as a veteran of the trade and provides an academic styled commentary that would be very useful in a learning environment for budding editors.
• Theatrical Trailers - A very good trailer with a 5.0 soundtrack. Much better than a matrix 2 channel surround so keep them coming in this format. The international trailer is a shorter version with the 2 channel format. You win some, you lose some. Finally, a trailer for The Devils Own. It seems they're providing trailers of past movies feature the main actors. Fair enough.
• Featurette - A 20min+ look at the making of the movie with the usual behind the scenes footage and cast/crew interviews.
• Deleted Scenes - There are 3 short deleted scenes with minor commentary from Pollack. There is some major aliasing in these scenes. Given the shortness of the scenes, I'm not really sure why they were dropped for time constraints.
• Cast Crew biographies - The usual few pages of tidbits that can be easily found on the Internet Movie Database.

I don't know about this movie, it just seemed as the main characters got over there respective losses too easily. Hey, that's probably just me but to find out your partner was having an affair after they are killed in an accident doesn't mean that thinking "They deserved it" ok.

Then again, you're trying to tell a story in the space of two hours. Ahh bugger it, it just didn't sit well with me but the side plot of Dutch trying to track down cop killing George provides some minor action to the movie.

A rental at most.