Forced into retirement by age and injury, Terry Brogan (Jeff Bridges) is hired by old friend Jake Wise (James Woods) to find his ex-girlfriend Jessie Wyler (Rachel Ward), who stole his money and is hiding somewhere in Mexico.
Out of the Past is a seminal noir.
It is also one of the major titles I had never seen.
I rectified that recently. And it’s great.
With its flashback structure and narration, the film is laden with doom.
Robert Mitchum (laconic, resigned) and Jane Greer (unknowable) are perfectly matched in their spiral to mutual destruction.
Once the flashback ends, and Jeff is ensnared in his lover’s machinations again, it becomes a little hard to follow.
What keeps it engaging is the circling, seduction/warfare between Mitchum, Greer and Kirk Douglas as her gangster boyfriend Whit.
I had no thoughts on the movie. For some inane reason, I was curious about the remake, 1984’s Against All Odds.
This review is not a reclamation project - it is not a great movie.
If it was smarter, it night make the cut as fun.
It tries to come up with a different angle on the story, and centres the romance.
I had trouble following the scheming in the original movie, but this movie really suffers from too much plot.
The film wants to reframe itself around economics, with Ward’s Jessie entrapped by the film’s real villains, Mrs Wyler (Jane Greer) and her unscrupulous lawyer (Richard Widmark).
The central love triangle is defined by the conflict between love and money.
Whereas there was a sense of fate drawing Mitchum toward his doom, Bridges is trapped by capitalism - through age and injury, he is unable to make a living, and drawn into Jake’s scheme - despite his better judgement.
Despite those implied stakes, the film never feels like the situation is getting more dangerous.
Maybe it is the effect of this movie being big budget and set in gorgeous locations but Terry’s fear is never something he has to reckon with.
At no point is he hard up for money, and the power imbalance between himself and the other characters is never foregrounded in a dramatic way.
Jeff Bridges is good in the lead but a bit too relaxed. Maybe this the effect of the script, but he is never faced with any obstacles that challenge him.
Rachel Ward is fine when asked to be aloof and mysterious. She is less convincing at showing the character’s deeper anxieties.
The film wants to puncture the archetype by creating a real backstory, but the script and casting are not nuanced enough to make it work.
James Woods adds real juice as Jake - he is the most noirish element of the film as a bad man in love with a woman who does not love him back.
He is bringing the only ambiguity in a movie where we are told that characters are limited by their wealth, but they are never tempted with choices which could elevate their economic anxieties.
Jessie is imprisoned by the money and power of her mother, but that never really turns into conflict. There are no consequences to her turning on her mother.
At the end of the movie, Jessie has proven herself to be on the side of the angels by saving Terry. But the lovers end the movie separated, with Mrs Wyler threatening retribution if they continue to see each other.
Right at the end, the movie tries to turn into a tragic romance as our couple stare silently at each other with tears in their eyes.
It does not work, and only draws attention to the film’s softened presentation of the familiar noir plot.
If the film wanted to make this romance count then the film should have revealed Jessie’s true character earlier in the piece so that the characters would have something to fight over.
Frankly the film feels like two movies clashing together, and neither is given enough room to breathe.
The thwarted love finale is a misfire, even with the titular Phil Collins song playing over it.
A strange, muted film, Against All Odds’s greatest sin is that it is bland.
It forgoes the fatalism of the original film, but replaces it with melodrama. If the actors had dynamite chemistry, and the script was just a little bit less complicated, it might have come off.
As is, the film just lies there.
The only interesting note, and the only aspect of the film which felt like an addition to the noir template is the score by Michel Colombier and Larry Carlton.
From the first spare, John Carpenteresque notes, it feels like a forerunner to the more jazzy, synthesised scores for later neo-noir and thrillers of the nineties.
It does not quite work, but it is more evocative than the rest of the movie.
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