Against All Odds **** (1984, Jeff Bridges, James Woods, Rachel Ward) – Classic Movie Review 2045

Director Taylor Hackford delivers a satisfyingly twisty, fascinating 1984 neo noir remake of the classic 1947 Robert Mitchum-Jane Greer-Kirk Douglas film noir thriller Out of the Past.

This time, in Against All Odds, Jeff Bridges stars as Terry Brogan, a disgruntled, aging, injured American football star who is in need of money and is hired by an old acquaintance, bookie-racketeer gangster Jake Wise (James Woods), to find his girlfriend, femme fatale Jessie Wyler (Rachel Ward), daughter of his football club’s owner. When he finds her, they start a dangerous love affair.

The vice-grippingly involving 40s film noir tale still makes for a compelling movie in the 80s, though the movie in no way replaces the original and, to be fair, nor does it try to. Strong performances bring back to vivid life the story’s mesmerising characters. Bridges and Woods are excellent and Ward is ideal.

Director Hackford lovingly unspools Daniel Mainwaring [Geoffrey Homes]’s complicated 1947 plot from his novel Build My Gallows High, with the help of Eric Hughes‘s taut and sizzling screenplay, while cinematographer Donald E Thorin films sexy, sensual scenes of passion, a colourful trip to the beautiful scenery in Mexico and a nail-biting car chase on Sunset Blvd. The movie includes extensive footage of the Mayan city Chichen Itza as well as Tulum.

Against All Odds delivers a strong Eighties LA odour but, bringing the authentic retro 40s flavour, it is especially satisfying to see Jane Greer as Jessie’s mother Mrs Wyler, the mother of the character she played in the 1947 film, and Richard Widmark as a nasty attorney, Mrs Wyler’s business partner Ben Caxton. Also, Paul Valentine, who played hood Joe Stephanos in the first film, plays a council man here.

The movie’s great Grammy Award-nominated soundtrack features songs from Big Country, Kid Creole & the Coconuts, Stevie Nicks and Mike Rutherford, Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins Collins’s pretty hit title song ‘Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)’ was Oscar and Golden Globe nominated and went on to be one of the top-selling singles of 1984.

Against All Odds is an adult thriller with some nudity, swearing and violence.

Eric Hughes is well up to the enjoyable task of adapting Daniel Mainwaring [Geoffrey Homes]’s original novel Build My Gallows High (published by William Morrow & Co in 1946) and the 1947 screenplay Out of the Past by Daniel Mainwaring [credited as Geoffrey Homes].

Build My Gallows High, Mainwaring’s final published novel, is regarded as his best. Mainwaring reflected: ‘With Build My Gallows High, I wanted to get away from straight mystery novels. Those detective stories are a bore to write. You’ve got to figure out whodunit. I’d get to the end and have to say whodunit and be so mixed up I couldn’t decide myself.’

Star supporting players include Alex Karras, Dorian Harewood, Swoosie Kurtz and Saul Rubinek.

Also in the cast are Pat Corley, Bill McKinney, Allen Williams, Sam Scarber, Tamara Stafford, Jonathan Terry, Ted White and Kid Creole.

It was shot in Manhattan Beach, California, the Yucatán peninsula, Isla Mujeres and Cozumel, Mexico, and on locations in Los Angeles and Hollywood.

Images of Bridges here are used to recreate a 35-year-old version of him in Tron: Legacy (2010).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2045

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