Against All Odds is an less than effective remake of Out of the Past that RKO noir classic that starred Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas and Rhonda Fleming. Not that the players in this film are bad, far from it. But the whole basic structure of the story was completely changed.
What made Out of the Past the classic it is, is the moody tension and overwhelming sadness surrounding the leading characters. Most of all Jane Greer who is an evil temptress beyond description bringing death and destruction to all around her.
Jane Greer is in this film, but as the mother of Rachel Ward who plays the part Greer had in the original. Ward in this one is just a spoiled young woman who runs off with bookie James Woods to upset mom and then runs off with him.
Greer is the owner of a professional football team in Los Angeles which she runs with her high priced fixer of a lawyer Richard Widmark. I think they're characters are modeled on Joan Payson who was the original owner of the New York Mets and M. Donald Grant who was reputed to be the hard character Widmark portrays.
Anyway Jeff Bridges gets into the act when he's cut from Greer's team and goes to work for Woods trying to locate Ward. The rest of the film is pretty much following the plot of Out of the Past until the ending which is completely different. Remember how everyone ended up in the RKO film and the same doesn't happen to most of them.
Still it's not a bad film, but Against All Odds just won't be a classic.
What made Out of the Past the classic it is, is the moody tension and overwhelming sadness surrounding the leading characters. Most of all Jane Greer who is an evil temptress beyond description bringing death and destruction to all around her.
Jane Greer is in this film, but as the mother of Rachel Ward who plays the part Greer had in the original. Ward in this one is just a spoiled young woman who runs off with bookie James Woods to upset mom and then runs off with him.
Greer is the owner of a professional football team in Los Angeles which she runs with her high priced fixer of a lawyer Richard Widmark. I think they're characters are modeled on Joan Payson who was the original owner of the New York Mets and M. Donald Grant who was reputed to be the hard character Widmark portrays.
Anyway Jeff Bridges gets into the act when he's cut from Greer's team and goes to work for Woods trying to locate Ward. The rest of the film is pretty much following the plot of Out of the Past until the ending which is completely different. Remember how everyone ended up in the RKO film and the same doesn't happen to most of them.
Still it's not a bad film, but Against All Odds just won't be a classic.