Buy it... if you insist upon owning every Jerry Goldsmith score and would seek even a mundane action score for a mediocre Charles Bronson film.

Avoid it... if you expect the Latin influence in the Breakout score to rival most (if any) of Goldsmith's other crossover efforts of the era.

Goldsmith

Breakout: (Jerry Goldsmith) After Death Wish in 1974, Charles Bronson's career as a vigilante seeking justice or money was as bankable as Clint Eastwood's equivalent. His character in 1975's Breakout fit the bill once again, and the film was only as successful as Bronson's name at the time. As for any particular merit in Breakout, that can be deduced to Robert Duvall in a supporting role, for Tom Gries' films were never fine art. They often did contain, however, a score by composer Jerry Goldsmith. Movies with Latin influences were commonplace in Goldsmith's career at the time, and in Breakout, Bronson would be hired by the wife of a wrongly arrested man to fly a helicopter across the border from America to Mexico to rescue him from a stinky 28-year prison sentence. Once again, Gries proves that Mexicans make good badguys, and Goldsmith is once again willing to compensate for Gries' poor techniques with an overachieving score. The two had collaborated on 100 Rifles, which featured a Goldsmith score of complex Latin rhythms and instrumentation over dissonant orchestral shades of gray. Breakout wouldn't require the flair of the spaghetti Western, and would ultimately be a far more simplistic score. While slowly pulling away from the mass of straight Western scores that had been a staple of his career in the previous decade, Goldsmith continued his output of colorful and ethnically rich and complex scores. Most prevalent was his knack for scores of Latin influence, and he succeeded in this genre better than most every other composer in the history of film music, culminating in the spectacular score for Under Fire in 1983. By comparison, Goldsmith's score for Breakout is a minimalist effort, a subtle score that requires a close listen to catch what fewer complexities it attempts.

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The Latin sound in Breakout is not as blatant as it is in many of his other works, which might come as a relief to Goldsmith fans who don't care for his rather loud, dissonant, and wild Mexican-influenced sequences. On a basic level, Breakout has all the elements of a Latin score of the flair of 100 Rifles, with castanets, guitars, a xylophone, and snare drums (among others), however none of these instruments dominates the tone or feel of the music. Traditional orchestral elements balance the score, with Goldsmith's more streamlined and serious action style of the 1970's better defining the whole. The most unique parts of the score, interestingly, involve the reflective and sensitive cues that Goldsmith scatters throughout the brooding and melancholy whole. The woodwind and string performances littered between "Hasty Exit" and "Farewells" (about 8 minutes of material) offer extensions of Goldsmith's best, low-key melodic work at the time. The finale, while possessing a few foul-ups in the brass section, is an interesting early experiment with synthesizers (which carry the main theme for a time) and as a whole, is the highlight of the album. The rest of the latter half of the score is occupied by highly energetic brass action cues, driven often by timpani and guitar. The sudden splash made by "Border Crossing" is an additional highlight. Overall, Breakout is very average Goldsmith score for the time, predictable and not as intelligently engaging as other Latin-flavored entries by the composer. The album represented the second in the Prometheus label's numbered "Limited Edition Club Release" series and was limited to 2,500 copies. The sound quality is as can be expected for a mid-1970's recording: not outstandingly crisp, but in listenable stereo nonetheless. Amongst the plethora of other limited Goldsmith album releases to hit the market in the late 1990's, Breakout isn't a standout, with only ten minutes of memorable action and thematic interludes worth mentioning. It is definitely meant for hardcore Goldsmith collectors only. ***   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

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For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.26 (in 113 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.32 (in 133,461 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.