Review of "Against All Odds," DVD version

 Review of

Against All Odds, DVD version

Three out of five stars

Disjointed plot, unlikely ending

 Jeff Bridges stars as NFL football player Terry Brogan, a wide receiver with a shoulder injury where his recovery is questionable. When Brogan is dropped from his current team and in need of cash, a shady L. A. nightclub owner (Jake, played by James Woods) pays Brogan big money to search for his wife, Jessie Wyler (played by Rachel Ward.) Pursuing her to Mexico, Brogan has little difficulty in tracking her down.

 However, things get complicated very quickly when Brogan falls in love with Wyler and they begin a steamy affair. When Jake becomes suspicious of what is happening between Brogan and Wyler, he dispatches his henchman Hank Sully to break up the love match using any and all means. This makes things even more complicated, and Brogan begins to realize that he is in the middle of a very complicated scheme with multiple levels.

 Things continue to move sideways as the plot becomes more complicated and even more opaque to the viewer. While most of the convolutions are resolved at the end, most of the suspension of disbelief of the viewer has been lost. To be intense, a thriller has to have some level of plausibility, but the complex level of corruption that involves a major land development, an NFL football team, illegal and unethical betting and several murders that seem to have been considered incidental destroys that premise. All of this causes the plausibility necessity to expire.

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