Movie Details
| Title: | Against All Odds | |
| Director: | Taylor Hackford | |
| Year: | 1984 | |
| Genre: | Drama | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 05.03.26 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (4)
- The Devil's Advocate
- Parker
- Proof of Life
- Ray
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 05.03.26 | Internet | The Criterion Channel is running an inspired series of 80s remakes along with their originals. I am aware of most of these remakes via childhood but hadn't seen many of them aside from Kevin Costner's No Way Out (which I liked as a kid but did not know it was based on the equally good noir The Big Clock with Ray Milland) and DeNiro and Sean Penn's We're No Angels (again unaware of the original with Bogey). There were a couple of surprise remakes though, one being Blake Edwards' remake of Truffaut's The Man Who Loved Women (I think I saw the original pre-this journal when I was going through Truffaut's ouvre) and the other being this Jeff Bridges remake of Out of the Past. I didn't like it. I mean, Jeff Bridges plays a football player so he's in top shape showing his abs off and everything, but it felt to me that the movie leaned into the plot, transcribing the original to power politics within LA's rich elite, and attempts to replace the dark hopelessness of the original with 80s steamy eroticism. It just doesn't work for me. As much as I like Bridges, he's miscast if they were going for Mitchum's dull wit. Bridges seems like an equal player amongst James Woods' sleazy bookie and Richard Widmark's moral corruption. It's not a mouse caught in a trap anymore, rather a mediocre semi-thriller where a guy learns that bookies and lawyers and rich people aren't very nice? That said, there's some location photography in Mexico, particularly Cozumel and Chichen Itza that's pretty cool from a historical perspective. I visited Chichen Itza around that same time and it looked exactly how I remember it (which I hear is much different now that you aren't allowed to climb the pyramids and the crowds are much larger). There's also a... mildly decent(?) car chase early in the film between a porsche and, I dunno, a terrible-looking ferrari along with a couple scenes shot where the Getty museum now stands that shows off mid-80s LA a bit. Also, I did appreciate that a movie like this existed in the cinematic landscape of the 80s. In one of those you-don't-know-how-good-you-had-it-until-it-was-gone things, this is an adult complicated drama with no action set-pieces and almost no gun-play that, yeah, didn't make many waves but still got its at-bat. I guess not having those action set-pieces or gunfights may be what makes this forgettable but still, hopefully you know what I mean. Movies today are for kids or nostalgic transactions. There's also a Phil Collins song which I didn't like at all but I guess people did at the time. The score for me was particularly unpleasant but very fitting in that 80s guitar-driven score sound you hear a lot like Lethal Weapon and such. I dunno man, just didn't like this one. I should've rewatched the original instead. I wonder if Criterion Channel viewers will largely come to the same conclusion if they check out these remakes. Like I haven't seen Paul Schrader's Cat People, Dennis Quaid's DOA, or Jack Nicholson's Postman Always Rings Twice, but how are they gonna top the outstanding originals they were based on. If anything, I think the series perhaps shows a similar nostalgic transaction for the boomers who saw these noirs as kids? Maybe they thought the same thing in 1984 where what's big was ewoks and E.T., children's nonsense to sell toys. I have a hard time believing people were pining for Cat People the way we were pined Star Wars when Episode 1 came out, but who knows... maybe? As I grow older, I do find more charm in these 80s movies I skipped as a kid. Stuff that was a complete no-go on the video shelves or playing on HBO now seems like opportunities to find hidden gems. Like Cutter's Way and Night Moves I liked pretty well. This one just didn't do it for me. |
