Churn The Turf

"For a man with such great power you have to take responsibility." Robert De Niro in his end scene with James Woods, Once Upon A Time in America

On one level, Against All Odds (1984) is a predictable suspense thriller that doesn’t necessarily earn memorial status through television syndication. Even Phil Collins’ sound track, so deftly fitted in to the conclusion of the film, has the mundane delphinic sound which plagues popular music from the eighties, instantly forgettable. Jeff Bridges, in the sheep’s clothing of composite character Terry Brogan, purportedly wins the day, with his finer tarnished moral decency, against gaming corruption embodied in Woods’ Jake Wise, a club owner with a lucrative gambling operation dependent on sometimes fictive NFL teams. There is one extraneous and tacky scene toward the climax where Bridges asks Rachel Ward if Woods’ dick is bigger than his, then the audience is treated to a tortured kiss of revelation and decision. Certain incipient details challenge auditory comprehension in decline, but whether Brogan was a star quarterback or a wide receiver cut from the “Outlaws” is nearly irrelevant to the story line, which beneath the surface is an inexorable deconstruction of American innocence. Ward’s character is comparable to Dashiel Hammett’s Ruth Wonderly. But Wyler doesn’t shoot her pursuers over some fantastic pursuit of wealth, as she is a magnet’s daughter without the pecuniary interests of Hammett’s villains. She seems to engage in opportunistic murder out of misguided self-preservation.

Although it is too far a stretch to say that Against All Odds upgrades the Manichaean dualism that Hammett popularized for his fans, it has enough trace elements to suggest we’re all complicit. Jake Wise is vulnerable despite his will to power, but the knife wound inflicted on Wise by the young Jessie seeking her escape doesn’t take the club owner out of his milieu, unlike Bridges, whose injury sets him apart just enough that he can function like a classical noir detective who can right the scales, except that the issue of what, if anything, is vindicated is left up to the viewer. To the director’s credit, this film isn’t a sports movie, so much as a cynical confirmation that “deep state,” does exist, has a complex relationship to our vices, much like the taut masterpiece that is Jackie Brown. It may be only sheer coincidence that Robert Forester appears in both films, and in each, functions as a facilitator, in Odds, a foiled henchman. If you’d like confirmation bias, all the recall you need is Tom Brady’s deflated pigskin scandal. It was such a big deal because Americans have a bicameral relationship with its gladiator love affair. We want great sports and a fast buck, and this Reagan era conceit with a 70’s hangover sketches in the dirty laundry better than Oliver Stone’s attempt, this film that comforts the dowager as a product of her time. But things haven’t changed that much. In the latest tri-state scandal, McClure turned Bobbitt into a superlative Samaritan, only to exploit him for our collective appetite for material acquisition.