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48 Hrs.: (James Horner) The origins of the "buddy
cop" subgenre of comedy law enforcement films date back to
48
Hrs. in 1982, a maligned production that had stalled for a long time
but turned into one of the year's most successful entries at the box
office. Paramount was originally so dissatisfied with director Walter
Hill's film that the studio initially indicated that it would never
distribute one of his films again. Part of the concern was the
bankability of co-star Eddie Murphy, who debuted here in a role as a
convict who helps a tough San Francisco cop (played with ease by Nick
Nolte) on the hunt for the gang of thugs who killed his partners. The
two actors and their characters hit it off, of course, and a single
hilarious scene with Murphy in a redneck bar solidified his big screen
career as a regular comic lead. Despite the relatively simple chase plot
and multitude of redundantly funny interactions between Nolte and
Murphy,
48 Hrs. received enough critical acclaim on top of the
substantial monetary returns to warrant a sequel in 1990. Hill has long
been associated with Westerns and his production of the
Alien
franchise, and while he has rotated between an awkwardly wide variety of
composers for his films through the years, his collaborations with Jerry
Goldsmith and James Horner in the 1980's were among the most notable.
The assignment of Horner to
48 Hrs. allowed the rising composer
to branch out from his best known comfort zone in the science fiction
genre, eventually yielding similarly styled sonic wallpaper of a gritty,
contemporary nature for Hill's
Red Heat and
Another 48
Hrs. over the next eight years. Disappointingly, while yielding a
competent atmospheric sound appropriate to Hill's desire for music that
functions as purely a background filler element, Horner's output for
these films has never attracted much appreciation when separated from
its context.
While Horner did receive praise for his limited work
for
48 Hrs., some of that recognition was likely a result of the
immense popularity of the songs by The BusBoys for the film. The group's
smooth blend of rock and blues tones is largely consistent across its
four songs for
48 Hrs., often utilized as source pieces in the
story's bar and club sequences. The end credits song, "The Boys Are Back
in Town," is the best remembered of these contributions, originally
considered by producers as the weakest of the lot but once again defying
expectations. Horner's score does attempt to emulate a very slight dose
of the same instrumental and genre character from the song placements,
but it is largely a frightfully serious score meant to accentuate the
many action sequences. The instrumentation and constructs of
48
Hrs. resemble a blend of saxophone, electronics, and steel drums
that not only foreshadows
Commando and
Red Heat, but also
represents some of the least palatable music to ever be written by the
composer. An orchestra does assist in providing depth to the score, but
minus trumpets and French horns. Trombones and tubas perpetually perform
a single descending phrase from key in unison over and over again, a
monotonous mechanism used with much better results in
Brainstorm
and even
Vibes. The rest of the orchestral ensemble is mostly
marginalized until the final chase cues, only the piano a traditional
element of significant presence. Its thundering bass tones merge with
tired, wandering lines of synthetic keyboarding that become even more
increasingly obnoxious as the score ages. The sax performs the score's
primary theme over a seven-note motif conveyed by basses, both of which
presented in the first minute of "Main Titles." Unfortunately, none of
these recurring motifs is particularly memorable, meandering aimlessly
in variations that make them difficult to follow or care about.
The sax performances in
48 Hrs. are nowhere near
as stylish as Horner can make them (revisit
Sneakers as an
example), and the bass idea becomes swallowed up in the dull droning of
whole notes on the synths. Horner's fascination with steel drums as
means of representing contemporary coolness is still a bit odd given
that the instrument is more commonly associated with reggae music (the
source cue "Aerobics" actually reminds of Mark Mancina's
Speed 2:
Cruise Control); veteran Horner collectors may find their usage here
to be predictable and boring. The only instrumental application of
interest for such listeners will be traditional band-inspired
percussion, the recording of the regular drums and cymbals slightly
wetter and thus more pronounced in a couple of cues. Since Hill chose to
spot the film with music very sparingly, Horner only wrote about 25
minutes of non-source material for it, and almost all of it addresses
the chase scenes. Within this subset, there is really no development or
evolution of ideas until the final killing of the villain in "The Alley"
brings the score to a sudden, depressingly sparse set of piano thuds to
close things out. The only upbeat cue is "Jack Leaves Elaine's
Apartment," with the aforementioned percussion joined by hip electric
bass and the sax performances of the primary theme. Compared to Horner's
otherwise downbeat score, the fifteen minutes of songs from The BusBoys
is a welcome relief. No soundtrack had ever been released for
48
Hrs. until Intrada Records issued a short album in 2011 with the
entirety of the score and the songs on one CD limited to 5,000 copies.
The quality of that album is as satisfactory as could be desired, with
decent sound for a 1982 recording and a good arrangement of the
material. It's hard to imagine that this product will appeal much to
even the most ardent Horner collectors, though, because it's a
predictable reminder of a period and genre in which the composer often
underachieved. Approach this one only with the intent to complete your
Horner library.
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| Bias Check: | For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.13 (in 98 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.25
(in 184,725 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes a list of performers and notes about the film,
composer, score, and album assembly.
