Buy it... if you've been waiting like most film score collectors to hear Mark Isham return to the outstanding, broad Americana strokes of Fly Away Home.

Avoid it... if any dose of sugar-coated orchestral adventure fits too sentimental a mold for your liking.

Isham

Racing Stripes: (Mark Isham) Without DVD players in SUVs and films like Racing Stripes in the theatres, how would adults seriously manage to keep their obnoxious children under control these days? Starting with Babe and National Velvet, a long list of films of this sort could be mentioned, with Racing Stripes taking the well worn, standardized plot line of "orphaned animal meets other talking barnyard creatures and proves itself in competition that redeems its species as well as the heartland family that raised it." The animals in the film are indeed real, and Hollywood gets another opportunity to confuse adults who see the CGI lips of the animals flail around without corresponding facial expressions that you've come to expect from looking at talking humans. Perhaps if the zebra that fancies itself as a racehorse was for some reason shot at the end --another familiar animal movie ending-- there would be something compelling about the film. The great news for movie-goers who enjoy Racing Stripes is that composer Mark Isham doesn't seem to care about any of these cliches or yawn-inducing dialogue. The project marks a triumphant return to the genre of "child helps animal" that remains the subject of Isham's most famous (and commercially unreleased) score, Fly Away Home. Wandering throughout various genres in his career, Isham is an interesting study because he is capable of writing stirring music for Americana at its finest while also being capable of writing extremely mundane and underachieving music for less wholesome genres. Without a doubt, though, Racing Stripes is Mark Isham at his best, with sensibility and inspiration without and overdose of sentimentality. A fully orchestral score, Isham infuses the work with just enough instrumental and vocal flavour to keep you listening, with a few of those rhythmic orchestral outbursts that made Fly Away Home a cult favorite.

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While one of Isham's themes is incorporated into the opening song performed by Sting, the vocal doesn't do Isham's idea justice. The fully orchestral statements of the primary theme, often accompanied by rambling snare, pounding timpani, and crashing cymbals are victorious in an innocent but highly satisfying manner. Simplistic in structure, the themes rely on their intrinsic warmth and pleasant balance of instruments to convey their good intentions. Remarkably, Isham avoids the extra sugar-coating that you expect to hear around every corner. In its more subtle moments, Racing Stripes offers two interesting ideas: first, a bluegrass representation of the Kentucky setting (led by slide guitar, jaw harp, and banjo) and secondly, an African influence in vocals and percussion that offers the zebra its distinction of heritage. The moments with the banjo may seem hokey at first, but their absence in the second half of the score is noted with disappointment. The African vocals (with solo voice over choir) are the best twist in the music, heard at a distance throughout the score in moments of aspiration and dreams. An underlying percussion joins the vocals in the triumphant moment of victory for the zebra in the big race at the end of the film. Perhaps --and this is just off-hand speculation-- an intriguing aspect of the African vocals is their potential racial implications, representing the black athlete in a white-dominated sport... It would be interesting to hear if Isham had any thoughts about this during his creation process. The giant, adventuresome race cue at the end features quick blasts of brass that will remind you of James Horner's The Rocketeer. Another positive attribute of Isham's Racing Stripes is the avoidance of weaker, slapstick comedy moments. The comedy relief is restrained mostly to the mobster/faux-Italian representations of the talking pelican (yes, a mobster type) in "A Pelican Named Goose" and "Goose Makes a Hit on the Iron Horse." The score's consistently solid performances from start to finish make Racing Stripes a very pleasant and surprising equal to Fly Away Home, perhaps even eclipsing the predecessor on album. The album contains two songs by Sting and Bryan Adams as well as a generous portion of Isham's score. Setting aside any bias towards the film and its genre, Racing Stripes is an unexpectedly rousing opening to the 2005 score season. *****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Mark Isham reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.84 (in 19 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.92 (in 7,603 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.