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Class Action: (James Horner) While many of director
Michael Apted's films have a longevity of popularity based on their quality,
Class Action isn't one of them. That's not to say that the 1991 film
isn't without its fair share of merits, with a fairly positive critical
response to the film yielding absolutely no audience response. A father and
daughter tandem of lawyers, played by Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth
Mastrantonio, finds themselves on opposite sides of the bar and arguing a
large, contemporary class action case against each other. The father is more
of the radical, sleazy type of attorney who jumps to serve a case against an
automaker whose 1985 station wagons have a tendency to explode. His daughter
represents the big business interests, and the case allows the entire family
to interact in such ways as to expose and deal with each character's flaws.
Apted seems to enjoy making films about people in their journeys towards
self-discovery, and in the case of
Class Action, it is Mastrantonio's
portrayal of the growing up and coming to terms with Hackman's (and her own)
flaws that highlights the film. In these regards, screenwriters Carolyn
Shelby, Christopher Ames, and Samantha Shad nicely avoided the pitfalls of
cliche in a project that otherwise had cliche written all over it. As for
the score for the film,
Class Action marked the second of three
notable collaborations between composer James Horner and Apted, ranging from
Gorky Park way back in 1983 to
Thunderheart in 1992, which is
one of the better scores to ever exist in an Apted film. Apted would then
jump around between composers before settling on David Arnold multiple times
in the late 1990's. On Horner's part,
Class Action is as basic of a
contribution to a film that a score can have. With so much attention placed
on the dialogue and acting in the film, the music serves only the minimal
purpose of filling dead air in the film.
With an obvious minimalistic approach in mind, you can't
really blame Horner for the lack of enthusiasm in his work. From the opening
to closing notes of
Class Action, there doesn't exist even one
inspiring moment. Horner's cost-efficient performing ensemble consists
mostly of himself, with a piano and synthesizer array joined occasionally by
a saxophone. With his own piano performances carrying much of of the score,
as well as a rather low gain mix on the album as a whole, it's easy to
forget that any music is playing at all. Only one primary theme exists in
Class Action, and its introduction in the first bars of the "Main
Title" lead to a insufferably countless repetition of that theme thereafter.
The opening and closing performances of that theme are the most developed
instrumentally, backed by light, meandering keyboarding, a synthetic
high-tone choir, a few magical swishes of metal, an electric bass sound, and
the sax over the top. A lazy, slightly jazzy swing defines the theme's
attitude, although the contemporary instrumentation of the piece is betrayed
by the lack of power necessary to establish a realistic presence in this
"big court case" film. The theme is essentially based on ideas later heard
in
Sneakers, but with all the life sucked out of it. Straight piano
solos for subsequent cues in the score simply reshuffle and repeat this
theme countless times, with little genuine emotion or any emphasis in
performance that would give us any reason to maintain interest in it. This
lifeless music continues during the entire length of the score and is
interrupted only by a high-class piano piece not from Horner and the cues
"Stolen Files" and "The Trial" as the film nears its climax. A slightly
heightened rhythm in "Stolen Files" is joined by a familiar, light tapping
of percussion that would hint at some of the suspense in
The Pelican
Brief. For "The Trial," Horner would employ a lengthy series of
dissonant keyboard strokes. But aside from these slight variations,
Class
Action contains little variation. Without the very casually appealing
sax performances of the title theme, this score would sink down to
Unlawful Entry level of total disinterest.
**
| Bias Check: | For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.12 (in 89 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.34
(in 158,769 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
* composed by Harry Warren and Mac Gordon.
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
