Welcome to A-Z Movie Reviews. Every Sunday, for the next several months, I will be posting a review of a film in my home movie collection. How it works is, I will be reviewing movies in alphabetical order until I get to the letter Z (Yes, I do have a film that ends in Z). Now I realize there are many ways to alphabetize a film collection, but this is mine so don’t judge me. This is simply for fun.
For this installment of A-Z Movie Reviews I’m talking about the movie Racing Hearts starring Jamie Dornan. One of the funny things about this film is the original title is Flying Home so, it could have fallen under the letter “F.” My version of this is Racing Hearts, therefore, it falls under the letter “R.”
What it’s about:
Colin (Dornan), a New York businessman, must choose between the deal of his career and the love of his life.
Racing Hearts is one of those random films that catches you off guard. The premise is one that I was unfamiliar with and to be honest with you, had it not been for Jamie Dornan starring in it, I would have never watched it or heard of it.
This film was done before Fifty Shades of Grey however, I personally wasn’t aware of it until after I saw Jamie Dornan in both The Fall and Fifty Shades of Grey. I need to point out the first time I watched Racing Hearts I felt like Jamie’s American accent wasn’t that great. It felt too stiff to me but after re-watching the film, I realized it wasn’t too bad.
One of the other things I couldn’t help thinking about while watching Jamie Dornan in Racing Hearts was that he reminded me of a young Christian Grey before he had Grey Enterprises. His demeanor in some scenes as Colin would carry out his business made me see Christian.
The blurb for this film says it’s a love story and it is but, it’s about more than that as well.
Like I said, the premise of Racing Hearts is an interesting one. Colin is a successful young businessman and he’s given the task of procuring a major deal with a powerful Sheikh (Ali Suliman). The thing is the Sheikh is not interested, that is until Colin offers him something he can’t refuse.
The Sheikh is a pigeon Fancier and one of his hobbies is racing them. Pigeon racing is very popular and he has aspirations of sending his pigeons to race in the Barcelona International. There just so happens to be a rare pigeon he wants to get his hands on. The bird, named Wittekop, is owned by an old man named Jos Pauwels (Jan Decleir) and he lives in Belgium. The Sheikh has been trying unsuccessfully to get him to sell it.
Colin sees this as an opportunity to get his deal with the Sheikh. He tells him that he will get Mr. Pauwels to sell the pigeon in exchange for working with his company. The Sheikh agrees and Colin heads to Belgium. Colin arrives in Belgium under the guise that he’s a High School professor trying to find the grave of his grandfather. While he’s in Belgium he meets and starts developing feelings for Mr. Pauwels granddaughter Isabelle (Charlotte De Bruyne).
As Colin’s feelings for Isabelle start to grow more and more, he begins to have second thoughts about what he was sent to Belgium to do. Not only that, he realizes just how important Wittekop is to Mr. Pauwels. As he spends time with him, he learns that the pigeons are more than just birds to the people of Belgium.
Racing Hearts is such a simple film but it’s unexpected because you get much more from it than a love story. It’s a movie about the importance of finding your roots, learning to respect the past, and to realize that there is more to life than being successful.
What do you say? Will give this movie a try? Feel free to share with us in the comments below!
Racing Hearts/Flying Home is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
