Against All Odds
5/10
A struggling football player (Jeff Bridges) is hired by a gangster (James Woods) to find his ex-girlfriend (Rachel Ward).
Many film noir films have snappy dialogue and a fast paced plot. If the Private Eye falls in love with the beautiful femme fatale, we accept it as a matter of course, knowing it's just one curve of the zigzagging roller coaster ride.
But the mistake Against All Odds makes is it slows down -- it slows way down -- using exotic locations and vivid colors, trying to depict, not just a romance, but true love, between Bridges and Ward. And as a romance, the film fails miserably. And it's never quite able to re-engage a thrilling film noir pace again.
Even if the script provided substance for a passionate woman (and I don't think it did), Ward displayed no talent for it. Even Bridges struggles to find a connection.
In one scene Bridges sheds passionate tears because he confesses a moral failing to Ward. It's necessary exposition for the plot, but has no authenticity for the bogus true-love-romance it slowly smears on the canvass.
A few films have successfully delivered a thriller and a romance, but in Odds, they unravel each other -- exemplified best during the closing climax, where the darkness, guns and clumsy characters seem as desperate, as the story is, for a conclusion.