(1984)
2.5
Michael Costello
Taylor Hackford's remake of Jacques Tourneur's noir doesn't approach the stature of its model, but displays some sharp insights into the dark side of pro football before degenerating into a ludicrous melodrama. The film never decides whether it wants to dwell in the fatalistic realm of noir or in that of the journalistic exposé more familiar to former documentarist Hackford. After spending its first act exploring the way in which wealthy sports team owners exploit the players whom they regard as little more than pieces of meat, it quickly switches to a misbegotten noir plot, whose comic potential becomes apparent when Karras wanders into the Mayan temple. Unfortunately, Hackford lacks the instincts for pacing, lighting, and composition so essential to noir, skills which directors accustomed to the genre have often used to disguise the basic inanity of a given script. Yet, despite its shortcomings, the film has a keen sense of the way that traditionally mobbed-up rackets like gambling and the music business share a common foundation of corruption with supposedly tony, legitimate enterprises. It comments on the Darwinian atmosphere of the '80s, while reflecting on the misguided efforts of the powerful to manipulate their loved ones. James Woods gives a brilliant performance as the alternately vicious and self-pitying businessman/gambler, Bridges has a brooding intelligence as the cornered ex-player, and Saul Rubinek is hilarious as an infuriating weasel of a sports attorney. Jane Greer, who so fascinated critic James Agee as the young woman in Out of the Past, has lost none of her skill despite years in retirement.
Against All Odds on AllMovie
Against All Odds (1984)
