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Assault on Precinct 13: (Graeme Revell) It's not
unusual for John Carpenter's original ideas to be remade and adapted into
modern projects, and
Assault on Precinct 13 is Jean-Francois Richet's
attempt to better the formula presented in Capenter's 1976 suspense film of
the same name. While the original cult classic built itself on tension and
fear, the modern remake has all the fingerprints of culture clashes and
Hollywood cliches. That didn't stop the new
Assault on Precinct 13
from receiving moderately reasonable critical reviews despite a mad flurry
of exposed plot holes, scene contradictions, and ludicrous
characterizations. These are, after all, the types of movies in which you
expect to see Brian Dennehy and Gabriel Byrne play their stereotypical
roles, but you still wish you'd see them somewhere else. With its
unrealistic and outlandish premise granted, composer Graeme Revell goes
about his business as usual, visiting familiar territory of the action/siege
drama. Revell seems to have a good knack for providing music that
appropriately fits the intelligence level of the film, infusing more of his
talent into projects that have three-dimensional suspense and taking a more
simplistic and synthetic approach for films that defy logic such as
Assault on Precinct 13. If you listen to Revell's urban thriller
scores, of which
The Negotiator,
The Siege,
Strange
Days, and, to a lesser extent,
The Saint are best known, you hear
a common thread of orchestral and synthetic blending. That mixture tends to
use its ambience, sampling, and looping to create a memorable listening
experience through atmosphere rather than thematic structure. For
Assault
on Precinct 13, Revell would only touch upon thematic elements at a bare
minimum level, and typically during moments of character development. No
unique instrumentation is heard in this score, further restraining its
ability to be noticed.
Without any grand outbursts by the City of Prague
Philharmonic --a performing group that can very easily make itself heard
when called upon to do so--
Assault on Precinct 13 meanders and thuds
its way through its underscore. Revell does seem to relish films that occur
on a dark and stormy night, for it allows him to use the players as a
"rumbling device" that he can combine with his drum loops and metallic
clanging samples to create sufficiently suspenseful environment.
Unfortunately, we've heard him produce this music in better form before, and
sometimes with the kind of lavish results you heard in
Red Planet.
But urban thrillers for Revell are a distinct sub-genre of music that only
some of Revell's collectors will enjoy. Whether droning in the depths of
synthetic bass strings or crashing like a drunk brass section (take a listen
to "Precinct Breach" for that one),
Assault on Precinct 13 is far
from being a pleasant listening experience. While Revell does create a
dirty, wet, and foreboding atmosphere, he fails to generate genuine suspense
in this work. Similar complaints have been leveled on the film itself, and
given Revell's ability to really strain the listener's nerves, it is
surprising to hear a score that that is content to rumble rather than rock.
The piano theme for the primary character is underpowered and unconvincing
given the nature of the character... wimpy is perhaps the wrong word, but
only at the end of the final cue does Revell offer the kind of hip rendition
(complete with standard band loops) of the theme that the film could likely
have used to a greater extent. One notable exception is the "Hot Wire Girls"
cue, for which Revell has seemingly paid respect to Carpenter's usual sound
by offering a dramatically heavy string theme over a meandering piano. This
cue, along with the opening rap song, are the highlights of the album. While
the "Generique Assault" song may seem like a bad offshoot of a Grand Theft
Auto video game advertisement at first, there are redeeming qualities in it;
Revell's orchestrally-conceived backing presents a pretty decent chord
progression and the lyrics are a rather humorous third-party description of
the film's release, its premise, and its actors (no 'explicit lyrics'
warning from Varèse Sarabande for the word "shit"?). Overall,
Revell's contribution is bleak and lacking in enough sustained suspense to
warrant much interest.
**
| Bias Check: | For Graeme Revell reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 2.67 (in 18 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 2.78
(in 13,793 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
