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Partly because of his distinct talents and partly because of his ethnic sensibilities, Blanchard's music often holds characteristics unique to his scores, with his hits soaring with elegance (Eve's Bayou) and his misses sometimes toiling in the realm of the bizarre (The Caveman's Valentine in parts). For Inside Man, Blanchard would produce exactly the same kind of score relative to his career that Lee would produce for his own directing credits: something entertaining but unremarkable. One of the scores that came to mind when Inside Man was announced was Graeme Revell's Out of Time from a few years ago (also starring Washington and with the score released by Varèse Sarabande). That previous score oozed with sophisticated ethnic suspense, an inherent sense of "coolness," and a listenability that one would expect more from Blanchard than from Revell. But Blanchard, while occasionally inserting a touch of jazz or rhythm & blues styles into his smaller cues, takes a much more mundane, conservative action stance for Inside Man. At its best, this score starts scratching at the doors of Carter Burwell's Conspiracy Theory, but never lets loose with the same appealing pizzazz. Comparisons here will be plentiful, as Blanchard incorporates many of the same chord progressions as Burwell's popular theme, especially in his final cues of Inside Man. Solo piano work in low ranges here is also reminiscent of Conspiracy Theory. The more unexpected and perhaps disappointing element of Blanchard's score is the common action figure heard in the opening cues.

Almost serving as leftovers from James Newton Howard or Graeme Revell's stock urban action drama scores, the title theme for Inside Man, aside from sharing common note progressions with half a dozen Trevor Jones scores, is stale in its performances, suffering from a lack of spirit that sometimes plagues Basil Poledouris scores in which the writing on paper deserves a performance far more vibrant than it receives. Echoing trumpets in "Hostage Takedown" are a variant on Jerry Goldsmith's Patton technique. Slower character-building sequences in the middle of the score share slower tempos and easy chord progressions with John Barry's tepid Mercury Rising. Some of Blanchard's own stylish rhythm work pokes through in more modest cues, but even these feature deep brass accompaniment that take a page or two from Conspiracy Theory. For "Nazis Pay Too Well," Blanchard incorporates a faux-classical string quartet that sounds nothing less than bizarre when performing the film's title theme. The following cue zips into more light percussion and electronics rhythms under brass accompaniment, exemplifying the identity crisis from which the score suffers. On the whole, this music is all over the map, and as much interesting talent as Blanchard exhibits on a regular basis, it might have been more fruitful had he resisted the temptation of a standard orchestral action score and infused the film with some consistent high stakes jazz or other genre-bending style that would cater to his abilities. The album ends with a decent A.R. Rahman/Hindi song from 1998 (with Irish-laced rap interludes! Caramba!), sending the listening experience in yet another completely different direction.  ***   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Total Time: 56:16