Against All Odds – 1 star

In these sensitive times, I’ll risk observing that Rachel Ward was exceedingly attractive. In various states of undress, even more so.

So, a steamy semi remake of Out of the Past featuring an on-the run Ward, who is sought after by her boyfriend, jealous LA bookie and club owner James Woods, who enlists recently cut NFL player Jeff Bridges to go after her for him, well … it has promise.

Alas, the smoldering Ward is the only good thing about this Taylor Hackford (An Officer and a Gentleman, Ray) dog.

Bridges does indeed find Ward. They fall in love and press the flesh in the steamy environs of Mexico.

So far, so good.

But soon, they are back in LA, propelling a paper-thin plot that lazily meshes real estate and political corruption, game-fixing, and blackmail.

Bridges is badly miscast as a jock. He is too effete for the role. Woods is working way too hard to do something with nothing, and everyone else is stock.

The script also calls for characters to do bizarre things. Case in point – Swoozie Kurtz is a legal secretary who meets Bridges briefly early on, is smitten, and on that connection alone, risks her life to help him gets files from her offices when he shows up out of nowhere later in the picture. Similarly, Alex Karras is a football conditioning coach who, after Bridges betrays Woods with Ward, comes down to Mexico to … bring her back forcibly, at gunpoint. Which means, by my estimation, even taking Bridges out of the equation, a ferry, a small plane and then a jet back to LAX, gun in hand.    

Worse, the score is cheezy tech crap that makes every scene feel like you’re watching 70s porn or at a sketchy massage studio.

Bad through and through, as the ending will attest, as if Hackford said, “Well, we need to wrap this turd up with more Rachel and the Phil Collins hit.”

I did read that after this film, Ward took a sabbatical to study acting. That tracks.