The score to this movie and the movie itself have received relatively bad reviews even as it ages. Honestly, the film itself has not aged well mostly due to the acting. The two love interests, Hawk and Thurman, are completely different. One being a passionate outsider with a dream and the other a subordinate conformist. The problem that they had on screen was that they portrayed these roles in all the surface ways which leads to cliche. The shimmer of hope in this movie was Law's performance which was comparatively on target.

The same things can be said about the score. Some bad reviews have said that it lacks drama and passion. The problem was that he filled the cranberry and vodka with too much vodka and not enough cranberry. The strings are too intense, and overpower the rest of the scores brilliant subtleties. The meolodrama was turned to 11 while the contrasts that were supposed to accentuate it are dulled at 2. I agree that many reviewers of this score are too unfamiliar with nyman's brand of minimalism to give a valid critique. Read Jason Ankeny's pitifully scornful review on allmusic.com if you don't believe me. Had Nyman been more subtle and exercised restraint, the un-climactic and repetitive nature of the score would have been a better listen apart from the movie. However, within the movie the score worked and well. The bad reviews are by contrast. I disagree that Glass is a better composer in this style than nyman. They're both melodramatic but glass is a prizewinner and desperately tries to cultivate the establishment while nyman is willing to take hard knocks for exercising his personal tastes. I want to give this score a 4, but I just can't. I still listen to it, not all of it, but that which I do listen to I love dearly. 3.9999999999999999...