Buy it... if you can never get enough of Jerry Goldsmith's brass blasts, drum machine hits, tense string plucking, and childrens' lullabies.

Avoid it... if you have no interest in a watered down version of Basic Instinct's suspense cues.

Goldsmith

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.

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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. **   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.25 (in 113 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.34 (in 129,366 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.