Buy it... if you have always appreciated Trevor Jones' knack for engaging melodies, that trademark yielding some striking orchestral and hard rock highlights in Kiss of Death.

Avoid it... if you seek interludes of unfettered awe or beauty in your Jones scores, emotional appeals not possible in this rather gloomy and gritty suspense work.

Jones

Kiss of Death: (Trevor Jones) The legacy of the classic 1947 film noir thriller Kiss of Death was tarnished in 1995, when 20th Century Fox attempted to remake the movie under the same title. The crime story similar to both films is centered upon an unlucky ex-con who is attempting to live a normal life with his family in New York but eventually is drawn into a single crime job that fails, leading him back to a long prison sentence. In the 1995 version of Kiss of Death, David Caruso's lead takes the fall for the botched job, and after his wife (Helen Hunt) is killed, he is convinced by Samuel L. Jackson's detective to help law enforcement capture the local crime boss (Nicolas Cage) responsible in part for his ills. Allegiances are tested and characters meet unpleasant fates in this noir-like atmosphere, one that the filmmakers spent special attention in creating to pay tribute to the original 1947 movie. Unfortunately, the film's pacing betrayed its impressive ensemble cast, and with mediocre response came struggles at the box office; Fox failed to recoup even half of the production's budget from domestic returns. Director Barbet Schroeder made a career out of pursuing questionable contemporary thrillers, only a couple of them achieving notable success. For his entries in the 1990's, he alternated between Trevor Jones and Howard Shore for the composing duties, the former tackling the music for Kiss of Death and Desperate Measures three years later. Jones was already well established as a mainstream name by this point, and lost in all the hoopla about his massive and dynamic orchestral powerhouses is a side career writing music for a wide range of suspense and crime thrillers. Jones is the type of composer who seemingly excels in nearly every genre, turning even the most hopeless cinematic situations (those in which a movie is destined to receive an extremely bland, workmanlike score) into opportunities to explore interesting and often accessible ideas. In Kiss of Death, his score would have to contend with a substantial number of song placements, only about a third of which appearing on the soundtrack album. These songs range wildly in culture and tone, gravitating towards the rock genre but failing to congeal outside of context. Jones, meanwhile, took his normal approach to such assignments at the time, combining his usual London orchestral recordings with distinct synthetic lines with skillful precision. While he sometimes utilized voices in these types of assignments, he bypasses that avenue for Kiss of Death and instead references hard rock elements to open and close the score.

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One certainty that you can count on in nearly every Jones score, regardless of genre, is a strong thematic core, and Kiss of Death is no exception. There is no soaring romanticism here, however, his ideas gritty and somber. But he is extremely loyal to their development, referencing them in practically every cue with melodramatic effect. There are expected passages of striking dissonance for the action sequences in Kiss of Death, but even in the middle of these portions, Jones frequently returns to tonal renditions of his themes. When combined with his propulsive meters, the breakneck cues have a touch of Jerry Goldsmith accessibility to them. The primary theme is somewhat convoluted but is developed well enough to suffice. Its ballsy performances by electric guitar in a purely rock-like environment in the "Main Titles" and "End Credits" are not to be missed by enthusiasts of vintage Hans Zimmer attitude (Point of No Return comes to mind), and listeners may find themselves disappointed that Jones did not expand upon that instrumentation within the meat of the score. Aiding in their appeal, these slapping percussion and ripping guitar credits sequences do enjoy compelling accompaniment by stylishly distorted keyboarding and the full orchestra, which lends satisfying brass counterpoint to the theme in usual Jones fashion. Notable performances of this theme include the excitement of "Illegal Convoy," which translates the theme to a purely orchestral atmosphere with impressive results. Another extensive reference of this idea comes in "Rosie and Corinna," which hands the melody off to the creepy Synclavier, oddly oriental plucked guitar, and noir-like trumpet. The synthetic keyboarding is the primary personality of the score's secondary theme, that which represents the main character. In "Jimmy's Dilemma" and "Jimmy's Resolve," Jones' cold but pretty identity raises distinct memories of the saxophone theme over electronics in James Horner's Unlawful Entry. Other motifs in Kiss of Death include pairs of notes for the lead's daughter, hinted under the main theme in "Rosie and Corinna" and developed clearly in "Corinna is Kidnapped." The villain also receives a stomping and chopping orchestral motif, culminating in the surprisingly organic "Junior's Arrest." There are, outside of these highlights, passages within the 22 minutes of non-rock original material from Jones that does drag, making the overall score a mixed bag. But the brazen rock personality of the opening and closing tracks in the score portion of the soundtrack album salvage the whole. There isn't as much pretty material in this Jones suspense and thriller entry as you hear in its siblings, but the main theme's various guises in Kiss of Death are well worth investigation by a Jones enthusiast. ***   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Trevor Jones reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.78 (in 18 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.5 (in 24,201 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.