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Malice: (Jerry Goldsmith) With a high caliber cast and
the same stylistically gloomy photography that Gordon Willis provided for
the
Godfather films,
Malice scratches and claws in its attempt
to mimic the intellectual complexities of a genuine Hitchcockian thriller.
After several revisions by multiple, independent screenwriters, the story
for
Malice took on a life of its own, with so many convoluted plot
lines throughout its length that the film works simply on the basic fact
that it keeps you scratching your head during every moment. Despite major
logical fallacies, the suspect script is floated by acting of Alec Baldwin
(in a fitting role as a surgeon with a God complex), Nicole Kidman (in the
latter end of her poofy hair days), Bill Pullman (who actually beats that
"hopeless nice guy" stereotype by the end), as well as enjoyable bit roles
by Anne Bancroft and George C. Scott. It's no surprise that
director/co-producer Harold Becker would utilize the services of veteran
composer Jerry Goldsmith for
Malice; many of the slick and crafty
elements of the film would necessitate music similar to that heard in the
recently Oscar-nominated
Basic Instinct by the same composer, and in
the end, a watered-down version of the
Basic Instinct score is
exactly what
Malice would get. Much has been said about how hard
Goldsmith labored on the
Basic Instinct score; the model of suspense
was perhaps less difficult for the composer to write than the incorporation
of sensuality into that model. For
Malice, all Goldsmith would need
to do is to strip the sensuality out of
Basic Instinct's thrill and
add a token variation on the "Carol Anne Theme" from
Poltergeist. The
combination is minimally sufficient, and it gets partially lost in the film
along with the parts of the story relating to logic, though the score is not
very interesting apart from the film.
The lyrical title theme once again plays to the
sensibilities of a small child --and there is one as an important auxiliary
character in
Malice-- beginning with the style of a music box and
evolving into a pretty melody for small adult choir. At first, this theme
may seem to defeat the purpose of the film, and indeed, when it opens the
end titles after the horrific resolution of the film, it seems a tad out of
place, but Goldsmith does temper the generally happy, major-key theme with
distinct, percussive strikes later in the performances of the theme. The
strikes are decidedly off-key, and their integration into the choral theme
eventually becomes dominant as the voices and accompanying ensemble die off
at the conclusion. Goldsmith does reference this theme at a few points
thoughout the score, but not without some effort to intregrate it with the
often minor-key suspense cues that maintains a perpetually disturbed
attitude throughout. This suspense music in the underscore shares many
direct similarities with
Basic Instinct (perhaps a temp-track
direction?). The balance between synthesizers and orchestra, with drum
machines and tingling sounds of tapping metal often setting rhythms for the
layered string section, remains. More distinctly, the piano rumbles in the
depths of its lowest notes in almost identical fashion as before. A plucked
string rhythm slowly sets the pace in many of the cues, foreshadowing the
opening sub-motif of
The Shadow. The only stand-out suspense cue in
Malice is "Clues," a piece that opens with almost the same barrage of
drum machine and brass blasts as "Unending Story" from
Basic
Instinct, followed by some of Goldsmith's better tense string writing.
The lengthy rhythmic cycles in this cue, stopping momentarily to quote the
title theme, offer five or so minutes of outstanding Goldsmith thrill and
action. The finale of the movie reveals its plot secrets in snapshot
succession, causing Goldsmith to pull out several extended crescendos of
orchestral hits with the drums at full volume. Overall, the score's title
theme is enticing, and the "Clues" cue is a strong candidate for Goldsmith
compilations, but the
Malice score on its short album presents far
more recycled ideas than novel ones.
**
| Bias Check: | For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.22 (in 111 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.36
(in 120,040 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
