Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... only if you appreciated the brief militaristic ensemble performances as heard in the film, or if you've always enjoyed Mark Isham's 1983 album "Vapor Drawings." Avoid it... if you expect any of the elements of this rather dull score to stand alongside the better music that Isham has provided the genre elsewhere. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Rules of Engagement: (Mark Isham) The career of director William Friedkin has, despite its great successes, been littered with forgettable, substandard entries. His 2000 film Rules of Engagement is no longer remembered as one of his projects, but rather the controversial adaptation of a story written by the then former Secretary of the Navy, Jim Webb, who would eventually achieve national fame through his unlikely win of a Senate seat from Virginia. He was so unhappy with Stephen Gaghan's screenplay and Friedkin's interpretation of his idea that he threatened to have his name removed from the project. Ultimately, the offensive material to Webb was removed, but at a cost of continuity in the film. Despite having talent all the way up and down the cast and crew, a confusing screenplay with numerous fallacies of logic doomed Rules of Engagement, not to mention the shifts between courtroom theatrics and extreme gore. The storyline follows the predictable path of an American Colonel prosecuted for murder when he orders lethal force to be used against Yemenese civilians who may or may not have posed a threat to the American ambassador there. Friedkin knew from the start exactly what kind of music he wanted to hear in Rules of Engagement. As a matter of fact, he had one specific piece of music in mind. He had been a fan of Mark Isham's composition "On the Threshold of Liberty" from his 1983 solo album "Vapor Drawings," and he used this piece as the temp track throughout this film (after yearning for years to find a suitable place for it in one of his projects). He was very pleased when Isham accepted the offer to actually score the entire film, adapting the previous work into the fresh soundtrack without attempting to alter its character or theme too dramatically. Isham's diverse career had never received much respect for its military components until the composer proved with the "Army Strong" commercial music of the late 2000's that he could rival the best at patriotic, orchestral majesty. To a minor extent, Rules of Engagement is a preview of that sound, but its execution, as well as the adaptation of the previous theme, is so restricted in scope and emotion that you end up with a rather mundane listening experience. The original recording of "On the Threshold of Liberty" featured electronics, deliberate rhythms, and Isham's trademark trumpet solos. He continues all of them here. The half of the score dominated by ambient sound design, with eerie metallic thumps and groans, is largely unremarkable. A few such cues are actually quite difficult to tolerate. The rhythms and trumpet theme are expanded upon quite elegantly in the opening three cues on album and "Semper Fidelis (Always Faithful)." One of the score's downsides is the brevity of Isham's own performances; his trumpet work is quite compelling and will leave you wishing there was more of it in this score. The slight electronic pulsation effect of the original "On the Threshold of Liberty" recording is translated into muscular percussion and brass in the opening three cues, and the roaring attitude of "Gulf of Aden (USS Wake Island)" will indeed remind you of the "Army Strong" commercial music. The early cues establish a forceful atmosphere of ball-busting patriotism that is completely lost in the remainder of the score, for Isham treats the courtroom and other scenes with such bland, ambient synthetics that the initial five minutes of exuberant character is a faint memory. Fans of "On the Threshold of Liberty," which is provided at the end of this soundtrack for reference, will hear similarities, some intriguingly subtle, between the classic work and this newer score. But the design of the music has changed so much that the audience for the adaptation will likely emerge from the regular orchestral film score collecting crowd rather than early Isham loyalists. The most peculiar aspect of Rules of Engagement is the simple, plain fact that "On the Threshold of Liberty" just isn't worth the stock that Friedkin puts in it. There have been scores fashioned after classic works before, but rarely one as frightfully boring as this one. That's not as much a comment about Isham's talent as it is about Friedkin's individual taste in music. The performances of the adaptation by the London Metropolitan Orchestra are unglamorous, but functional. The album from Milan includes two freshly recorded cues absent from the film; unfortunately, one of these ("Gulf of Aden (USS Wake Island)") is the highlight of the score. The other, "Breach of Peace," is easily the worst cue overall and its omission is understandable. On the whole, there are highlights worth investigating here, but the majority of music is extremely dull. ** Track Listings:
Total Time: 41:57
* not contained in film ** contains previously written material All artwork and sound clips from Rules of Engagement are Copyright © 2000, Milan Records. The reviews and notes contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Filmtracks Publications. Audio clips can be heard using RealPlayer but cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 3/28/00, updated 7/19/08. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2000-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
