Buy it... if you enjoy all forms of Jerry Goldsmith's procedural action music, even if it is highly derivative of his other works and lacking in fresh instrumental ideas.

Avoid it... if you don't need to hear Goldsmith on auto-pilot in a recording that is flat in ambience and a commercial album missing some of the better material from the film.

Goldsmith

Executive Decision: (Jerry Goldsmith) While it's incredibly politically incorrect to say so, there was something entertaining about Hollywood stereotypes of Arabs in early 1990's cinema. The widely advertised 1996 summer blockbuster hopeful Executive Decision touted its portrayal of a stealth aircraft in action, assisting a team of commandos board a hijacked plane full of, you guessed it, crazed Arabs. In this case, there's not only a load of people to save on the plane, but there's also a wicked bomb in its cargo hold that presents a significant danger once the plane crosses over America, proving once again the ills of pre-September 11th airport screening. At least the film did feature a cast that makes it one of the more enjoyable late-night finds on television; while Kurt Russell and Halle Berry save the day, the always amusing Navy Seal-inspired Steven Seagal makes a rare exit with a glorious death relatively early in the film, an intriguing plus. With such a familiar formula otherwise at work, composer Jerry Goldsmith was set to reinforce his return to the mainstream action genre in the middle of the 1990's, though he fared better with this general subject matter when Air Force One flew into theatres the following year. After spending much of the early 1990's trudging though the less popular fields of children's films and light comedies, Goldsmith reinvigorated his fanbase with several full scale action efforts, the results of which were very mixed, varying from highly memorable to merely mediocre. One of the more mediocre ventures was Executive Decision, typical of numerous projects for which Goldsmith's usual standard of action writing managed to elevate the film from total failure. Unfortunately, the production matched the disappointment experienced by Chain Reaction at the same time, failing to add any significant new substance to Goldsmith's career. This is the kind of good-guy/bad-guy action that the composer likely heard in his own sleep, with the expected orchestral and synthesized ensemble tones ready to pump out familiar Goldsmith techniques at every turn. Luckily, the feeling of constantly rehashed material was restricted to this film rather than overflowing into Air Force One, leaving Executive Decision as a faint shadow of the other score. Strangely, Goldsmith would not do his best work for director Stuart Baird, with whom the composer would also collaborate on U.S. Marshals and Star Trek: Nemesis.

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If there is one consistent aspect to Goldsmith's work for Baird's films, it's the lack of great steps in creativity. Almost in opposite fashion to his work on Joe Dante's more quirky projects, the straight-laced action of Baird's endeavors, including Executive Decision, seems to leave Goldsmith without much inspiration. The themes and orchestration in Executive Decision are extremely familiar, with the ensemble's performances often dull and lacking vibrant character. There is little enthusiasm to be heard out of these performers, Goldsmith's brass fanfares here missing the bounce and dynamic energy that they exhibit in his other scores. The structures are also weak, reminding of Twilight's Last Gleaming in both its percussive suspense rhythms and occasional militaristic outbursts. The main fanfare is structurally very similar to that of First Knight, and trumpets seem content to perform a very faintly echoing motif that once again raises memories of Patton. For the many action sequences, Goldsmith's rhythmic material lets rip with a light snare and tingling electronics, but the flat ambience and average-at-best primary theme severely restrict the score's ability to interest you beyond the vast collection of other Goldsmith works. Even the synthetic motif for the Arab terrorists is conceived in a half-assed manner, very underdeveloped and stereotypical in its use of Middle Eastern progressions. For collectors of all of Goldsmith's action material, portions of the opening three and closing three tracks on the Varèse Sarabande album will provide ten to fifteen minutes of reasonable but underdeveloped music with familiar origins. The middle portions often rumble through ambient rhythmic minimalism that greatly hinders the listening experience. Outside of context, the score suffers more than most other Goldsmith projects because the cues presented in the film are often very short in length. Although Goldsmith recorded over 80 minutes of music for the film, the commercial album woefully presents less than 30 of those minutes, with only the lengthier recordings chosen for inclusion. Despite the licensing reasons that justified this length of presentation at the time, Goldsmith fans continued to use Executive Decision as a complaint point for many years. Unfortunately, some of the more interesting music from the film existed in those short cues that were not provided, sending fans in search of widely distributed bootlegs of the score. These omissions, along with a composer on auto-pilot and a recording that is flat in ambience, make Executive Decision an album to avoid unless you are a fanatic collector. **   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.