Buy it... if you are a sucker for unrestrained religious horror music, with all the expected crescendos of choral beauty and tumultuous orchestral rhythms.

Avoid it... if a series of over-the-top and in-your-face statements of religious power is just as offensive to you as the blasphemous Al Pacino dialogue included from the film.

Howard

Devil's Advocate: (James Newton Howard) While Al Pacino had portrayed his fair share of sick individuals throughout the years, 1997's Devil's Advocate gave the actor the opportunity to enthusiastically play none other than the fiery Satan. Taylor Hackford's film, based originally on Andrew Niederman's novel, takes a very straight forward approach to Satan's activities on earth, placing him atop a New York law firm and removing any ambiguity about his horrific intentions. A gruesome suicide scene, among some extreme sexuality and extraordinarily offensive dialogue (from a religious point of view), places the film in the competent religious horror category. Although dominated by Pacino's over-the-top performance, the film manages to take itself seriously enough to avoid the ranks of parody. One of the elements of the film that pulls no punches is James Newton Howard's score, which stands as one of the more powerful, religiously thrilling scores of the digital era. Howard's score is so transparent that it is forced to rely on its overwhelming power to avoid becoming a parody of religious horror scores itself, and it overcomes its own inconsistencies to qualify as a guilty pleasure on album. There are so many influences on this score, from Howard's own career and others notable in the genre, that the score is more entertaining in its collection of recognizable sounds than for its own unique structures. Given that Howard obviously intended the score to have an immediate, explosive impact on each and every individual scene in the film, his music for Devil's Advocate is a series of remarkable crescendos and fast hitting rhythmic devices. As such, the score has little identity outside of the simple fact that it continues to slap you in the face with orchestral, choral, and electronic ruckus at some point in each major cue. The result is a surprisingly entertaining score that features all the devious attitude of the topic while supplying the proportionate awe.

When you start looking at reference points in Devil's Advocate, there are almost too many to mention. At the time, the only Howard score that you could compare this one to was Flatliners, which offered the same style of brutality and combination of orchestral, choral, and electronic elements. While Devil's Advocate doesn't have the momentous beauty of the best moments from Flatliners, it does give you several stunning choral crescendos. Howard confidently provides these moments of zeal with just enough harmony to mark the religious overtones while also throwing in random dissonant elements for the horror aspects. The only title theme of sorts is an "allure theme" that is particularly important in the relationship between the married characters played by Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron. As Satan begins to influence their relationship, from early lovemaking to later suicides, Howard repeats a frightful, slightly erotic theme that is overtaken by a rhythm straight from Jerry Goldsmith's Basic Instinct. But in "Lovemaking," "Time," and "Suicide," this rhythm is given layers of choral treatment much like John Barry's famous The Lion in Winter score. As the harmonic treat in the score, this theme is typically aided by a wealth of bass string and brass power as it reaches its climaxes. It becomes more mutated as Satan's grip is tightened throughout the film, making it more difficult to enjoy apart from the film, though the sense of melodrama associated with its appeal is never truly lost. Other cues of momentous choral beauty are littered through the score, and many of them offer singular motifs that aren't developed much elsewhere. The "Church" cue provides perhaps the only choral crescendo in the score, albeit brief, that is untainted by a blast of dissonance at its conclusion. Such is the case with the score's most memorable cue; as Pacino creates the illusion that every person other than Reeves' character has vanished from the streets of New York, Howard unleashes one of the most ambitious choral crescendos of his career.

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In that "57th Street" cue, Howard also highlights the usage of a boy soprano, whose performances grace four major cues in the score. His overtly religious tones are likely a direct nod to the effectiveness of Elliot Goldenthal's similar employment as the highlight of Alien 3, and the usage would become standard by the time John Debney would utilize the same technique in End of Days. Several other influences on Howard's music for Devil's Advocate should be mentioned, especially in the incorporation of electronics. The selection of synthetic rhythms and sound effects seems lifted directly from the library of Craig Armstrong. Howard does this to give Satan his cool, modern edge. In "Montage," that hip stance is established, and it takes a darkly dramatic (and extremely Armstrong-esque) turn in "Geddes." In this cue, the Armstrong rhythms are joined by a distance church organ, pulsating choral accompaniment, and eventually some precise and harsh blasts of medium-range brass that will remind of John Frizzell's later horror work. Some of the straight action rhythms in Devil's Advocate are worth several listens, too, including two later in the film that will recall Jerry Goldsmith's 1990's style. From the strings and chimes late in "Cullen Gets Off" to the brass and percussion opening "Suicide," Howard's action material, though usually brief, is quite strong. Fans of the composer will even be able to draw some lines between the tumultuous choral rumblings of a handful of cues, such as the opening moments of "Main Title," with Howard's remarkable and much-loved Lady in the Water nearly ten years later. On album, the score is an inconsistent listening experience, partially because of Howard's wildly shifting work, and partly because of source music and dialogue thrown onto the product. The inclusion of the rants by Pacino about God and humanity in three dialogue tracks are quite enjoyable for non-religious listeners, but could be extremely disturbing for the pious. Overall, though, Howard's score is likely one of the more underrated of his career, and it plays to the film's attitude with as much enthusiasm as Pacino himself. ****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For James Newton Howard reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.31 (in 53 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.16 (in 58,041 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.