Buy it... if you want that irresistible title theme that brought Jerry
Goldsmith as close as he'd come to a James Bond song.
Avoid it... if the idea of hearing Goldsmith imitate Bill Conti's light
rock style causes you significant consternation.
Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Goldsmith
Rent-A-Cop: (Jerry Goldsmith) A 'bad cop, good hooker'
film fresh off the factory line, Rent-A-Cop really has nothing
distinct to tell about. A former Chicago police detective is kicked off the
force after a sting goes wrong (but it wasn't his fault, of course) and he
is forced to work as a department store security guard while masked as Santa
Claus. That would be Burt Reynolds wearing the costume. And then you've got
a prostitute with a heart of gold who is the only person who can help the
cop solve the case that involves him. That would be Liza Minnelli with the
shrill voice. The cop hesitates, the hooker persists, they both suffer from
the same danger, and they're forced to save their lives together and bring
down the stereotypical 'vice lord' and his criminal gang of thugs. We won't
even get into the self-explanatory romance part of the story. One of the
only things that worked reasonably well for Rent-A-Cop was the
on-screen chemistry between Reynolds and Minnelli (or Burt and Liza, as the
movie poster said in big letters). Other than their strangely funny and
enjoyable pairing, the film's ridiculously predictable plot left no other
redeeming element to the film. Director Jerry London's career would be
littered with such entries. The only other exceptional aspect of the film
would turn out to be the score by Jerry Goldsmith. Rather than hearing
Minnelli sing (or screech... your preference) throughout the picture, we get
a Goldsmith score that stands far apart from other works by the composer in
the 1980's. At the time, the film seemed like a completely unexplainable
abnormality in Goldsmith's career. Despite the odd entry for The
'Burbs that would follow a year later, Goldsmith had spent the decade
toiling with drama, suspense, science-fiction, and horror. Meanwhile,
Rent-A-Cop seemed like a project destined for the music of Lalo
Schifrin, Burt Bacharach, or Bill Conti... someone who could infuse the
score with the jazzy romance it needed while also throwing in some hokey pop
action for the light crime thriller parts.
The most memorable part of Rent-A-Cop is the
evidence that Jerry Goldsmith succeeded in writing the only true Bill Conti
theme of his career. In fact, the jazzy, pop-based light rock theme that
Goldsmith provides is the closest thing we'd ever hear to a
Goldsmith-written James Bond theme. Extremely dated in its early 1980's
stylisms, the theme was remarkably well-suited for the location and
characters of the film. A whimsical piano and lofty, romantic strings set
the mood before a solo trumpet enters to the rhythm of an electric base,
light percussion, and soft keyboarding. As the thematic performance lightly
sways with elegance, a modern listener might have to look around and make
sure he isn't standing in an elevator. Goldsmith does offer a little more
muscle in the brass and snare hits in the theme's latter moments to give the
music some genuine meat. People who search out the score are always seeking
this theme, for it repeats three more times and prominently over the
credits. The score's darker half really isn't that dark... How could it be
after such a charming title theme? In "The Bust," Goldsmith establishes the
electronic rhythm that pulses during the game sequences of Hoosiers
and invents a sweeping 'swish' sound that crosses from right to left in the
soundscape at an appropriate pace. A slower, alien-like 'warbling' sound
bounces around in the background of later rhythms, with a standard host of
Goldsmith's usual sample collection entering the scene at various points.
The score rarely takes the action to the next level, with the opening blasts
of horns in "Worth a Lot" similar in attitude to the concurrent Extreme
Prejudice. A propulsive action cue is revealed in "Lake Forest," in
which the tingling electronic rhythm is joined by a piano rumbling in deep
octaves as well as a trumpet hailing over the top of the entire ensemble.
Along with the addition of chopping strings to accent the underlying rhythm,
this cue would hint at ideas that would mature in Basic Instinct.
Overall, however, the action material doesn't hold the same memorability as
the light rock title theme. The action is light enough itself to flow
decently with the thematic statements, so the album functions as a listening
experience. Some uneven mixing includes a sharp cut at (1:35) in "Jump,"
when two different recordings were awkwardly spliced (with outstanding sound
quality cutting to a far weaker recording). The performances by the
Hungarian State Opera Orchestra are not always perfect, but they're not as
bad a group as some Goldsmith fans would argue. Overall, Rent-A-Cop
is a very pleasing and lightweight album that has sadly fallen hopelessly
out-of-print. ***
