I've been exploring one of those wonderfully odd Criterion Channel collection: 1980s remakes. It's half of a great idea, because the original films are all really good if not great, but the 1980s remakes (with the exception of Carpenter's The Thing) are abominations. I appreciate the quirkiness, although it also makes me a tad nervous. I hope that they're not doing this because it's a cheap option and that it foreshadows some doom down the road (this mainly me fretting about a thing, the Criterion Channel, that I love and which gives me so much happiness). The other night I watched, or maybe re-watched, Taylor Hackford's 1984 misfire, Against All Odds. If I ever saw it before, I didn't know that it was a remake of Out of the Past. Now, take this with a grain of salt, because Out of the Past is one of my favorite movies, but, wow, Against All Odds is a dog. It would take more time than I have at the moment to express, fully, how bad this film is, so I'll restrict myself to the most obvious problems. First off, they broke a cardinal rule: never remake a classic film. Maybe it's ok to remake a film that was close to being a classic, and there's some little thing the original missed or got wrong, and you're almost completing the vision, building upon the unachieved potential. But please, for the love of God, stop remaking great films. It's insulting. Secondly, Jeff Bridges, Rachel Ward, and James Woods are simply not Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and Kirk Douglas - not even close, even though I sort of like all of them, especially Bridges. Thirdly, the script is a trainwreck, there are way too many unimportant minor plots competing for screentime, and whereas the original had more great lines that you could count, no one in this film ever says anything even remotely intelligent or funny or engaging. Fourthly, your broke one of the cardinal rules of film noir: a hopeful ending where the central characters somehow walk away unscathed. Did Hackford simply not have the courage to kill off Jeff Bridges and Rachel Ward? Fifthly and finally (although I could go on and on), they gutted a classic femme fatale, one of the greatest in film history. Jane Greer's Kathie Moffat was so brilliantly drawn, and so utterly evil, whereas Rachel Ward's character is mainly annoying (I don't think it's her fault, it's just a crappy script). There's probably some thinly veiled misogyny at play here as well, which is strange since Out of the Past is decades older, and yet the Kathie Moffat character simply has more agency; Rachel Ward's Jessie Wyler seems to exist mainly to be sweaty and minimally clothed, an object as compared to a subject. The only good thing I can say about it is that Jane Greer has a cameo, and although she's not given much to do, she still steals the show. If you want to understand how not to remake a classic - of for that instance how to not make a good movie - then by all means watch Against All Odds. Otherwise, please keep your distance.
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