A winner against all odds?

Press, 10 September 1984, Page 13

A winner against all odds?

AGAINST ALL ODDS Directed by Taylor Hackford Screenplay by Eric Hughes The dilemma of talking about a movie like “Against All Odds” (Westend) is that no matter how it is criticised, the film will win anyway. “Against All Odds” comes from the hands of Taylor Hackford, who directed “An Officer and a Gentleman,” and again I have the feeling that he has used a computer to work out the required elements for a box-office success, meticulously isolated and honed them, and then stirred it all into a winner.

Hackford is a stickler for detail and does not miss a trick. He is the kind of man who would not throw a pie

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in your face without first putting tomato sauce on it.

He makes sun-drenched movies, with a touch of exotica, so that the audience does not quite know where it is — but still loves it. He started “An Officer and a Gentleman” in the Philippines, ' and “Against All Odds” in Yucatan, while keeping most of the plot on the home territory of Los Angeles. He uses the ruins of Chichen Itza and Tulum, with their impressive temples, palaces, pyramids and tombs, as gritty contrast to the glistening corruption of modern-day Los Angeles. Besides a touch of travelogue, Hackford puts in appealing pop music, littleknown but sympathetic actors, smaller roles by established names (Richard Widmark), and rehashes the plot of an already-proven-cinema success.

“Against All Odds” is very loosely based on the 1947 film, “Out of the Past,” which starred Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas and Rhonda Fleming. Greer appears again, this

time as the mother of the main female character, but this is where the similarity ends. ,

“Out of the Past” was about a petrol station owner with a past who meets a desperate woman, and ended up with murder. It was the ultimate Robert Mitchum movie, and has also been described as a Hollywood “film noir.” The part of the gas station owner (Mitchum), has been turned into a former professional football player (Jeff Bridges), who is now looking for something else to kick around, and takes on the job of, finding the missing lady (Rachel Ward) of a shady night-club owner.

He finds, falls in love with and makes love to her in the ruins of the Sweat House of Chicken Itza. All this is interspersed with

flashbacks to Los Angeles, the power dealing associated with football teams and real estate, and who owns who.

The plot is too involved to try to explain here, but-it comes as a bit of a letdown when one is finally told that love conquers all, particularly when one is led to believe that there are much more devious delvings involved. “Out of the Past” was noted for its Proustian rememberance of things past, but changing the madellaines to tacos does not bring with it an equally clear recollection in “Against All Odds.” The film does leave one with an overabundance of enigmas. Besides trying to unravel what is a deceptively simple plot, one also wonders why Rachel Ward is presented as such an

anodrgynous character. The tomboy haircut is cute but one gets the feeling it is intended to make her even more mysterious and difficult to put a finger on. Equally hard to define is her accent, which ranges from British to American and Aussie. (The fact that she is English bom, and married to the Australian actor, Bryan Brown, and spends six months of each year in Sydney may explain Hackford, however, knows what his audience wants, and gives it to them. I enjoyed “Agajnst All Odds,” as I did “An Officer and a Gentleman,” but left both films with an uneasy feeling of having been manipulated just as much as the film’s ingredients. He is the kind of director who would be ideal to make a sequel to “Terms of Endearment.”