Buy it... if you seek inoffensively pretty music in the upper tier of James Horner's personal and subtle human drama scores.

Avoid it... if even the most charming and melodic of Horner's more restrained efforts cannot sustain your interest compared to his otherwise robust orchestral inclinations.

Horner

Dad: (James Horner) A story about the self-discovery and reaffirmation of an average, contemporary American family, Dad is another lesson on how to and how not to take care of your parents once they reach the frustrating age of senility. A busy banker in the big city is forced to take leave to attend to his ailing parents and the "coming together" experience helps heal years of distant relationships and the story shows the audience about how older folks can learn to cope with their illnesses and other age-related ailments. The 1989 film dances without finesse between the realms of drama and comedy, perhaps to a level of fault that it cannot recover from. Written and directed by Gary David Goldberg, Dad represented his first feature film after years of directing TV's popular "Family Ties" show. Critical reaction to Dad pounced on this inexperience and often related the problems with the film to the pitfalls typical to sitcom comedies. All of the actors in the production would go on to better representations of their characters in subsequent films (especially Jack Lemmon in the Grumpy Old Men movies), and the same could arguably be said for composer James Horner as well. Best known for his adventure and high drama scores in the 1980's, Horner used his budding efforts in children's genre entries like An American Tail and The Land Before Time to prepare himself for these kind of syrupy, small-scale human drama pictures that would become associated with his sound over the rest of his career. His collaboration with Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment came into play once again in Dad and would lead to several similarly curious projects involving the composer during the following few years. Of his efforts in the intimate human drama genre, many of which become redundant after you evaluate three or four such similar scores, Dad remains one of the more personable and enjoyable works, building a consistently easy-going listening experience around the foundation of one of Horner's very typical children's-styled themes of the era. While Dad isn't exactly a children's film, of course, the composer handles it as such by applying equivalent sensibilities in his light touch and friendly instrumentation. There is nary an offensive moment in what some may find a pedestrian tackling of the topic.

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Horner collectors familiar with Searching for Bobby Fischer and To Gillian on her 37th Birthday will recognize the scope of Dad immediately. While those other scores lay on the drama more heavily during their melodic performances, Dad dribbles along in a more contemporary style. Horner's primary theme is a merging of An American Tale ("Somewhere Out There" lives on...) and The Land Before Time, following familiar chord progressions and alternating between performances of sweetness in strings and woodwinds that will remind listeners of Jerry Goldsmith's innocent themes of the years to come. In the opening cues, as well as "Dad," Horner's main theme is accompanied by light rock elements, and in the latter track, Jay Gruska's arrangement of Horner's material allows the saxophone to carry the tune to much of the same degree as in Goldsmith's Forever Young. Later in the score, this theme adopts a more strictly orchestral personality, culminating in a "Goodbyes" cue that mirrors The Land Before Time in its string usage. The opening bars of "Taking Dad Home" feature perhaps the most explosive outburst of emotion, as heard during a pivotal sequence in the film during which Lemmon's character is literally carried out a hospital by his son (Ted Danson) with Hollywood flair (a moment that ruined the film for some critics, it should be added). The consistency of thematic variations makes Dad an easy and nearly uninterrupted experience. The one exception is "Mopping the Floor," Horner's lone comedy cue from the film, for which he switches to a wild bluegrass/jazz rhythm performed by bass string and steel drums with a catchy violin melody over the top. While some listeners might be turned off by this significant departure from the nonstop charm of the rest of the score, it is another one of those curious moments in Horner's career that you almost wish the composer would explore to a greater degree at some point (Field of Dreams the same year also featured a cue or two of this kind of material). Amongst Horner's more subtle work, Dad measures up to nearly the level of The Spitfire Grill in its ability to involve the listener with just enough substance while maintaining appropriate restraint. It is at the opposite end of the scale from something like Class Action, which suffers from a striking lack of personality compared to Dad. Despite being badly out of print, the album has remained relatively easily attainable and will be a welcome addition to any Horner collection. ****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

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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.