 |
|
| Beck |
|
|
The Sentinel: (Christophe Beck) Either the casting
entity for
The Sentinel is brilliant or incredibly dense, because
your ability to enjoy the film will likely depend on how big a fan you
are of the
24 television series, or maybe even
Desperate
Housewives. While actress Eva Longoria tries to shed her television
role in this big ticket thriller, Kiefer Sutherland doesn't take as much
time distinguishing between his roles in
24 and
The
Sentinel, causing the film to be an awkward extension of half a
dozen strong television cop and government dramas currently popular on
the small screen. In the end,
The Sentinel is another example of
how a tough guy in his 60's (Michael Douglas, in this case) can still
outwit and physically outperform professionals half his age. He is the
Harrison Ford-like fugitive in
The Sentinel, a legendary secret
service agent suspected of plotting to assassinate the American
president, and he takes the audience along with him on his thrilling cat
and mouse game with his former colleagues until the film falls apart
with a rushed and implausible ending. That last final blow has directed
critics and audiences to expose the flaws of the overall picture, and
it's hard to predict a prosperous future for this little snippet of
mainstream action. Actor-turned-director Clark Johnson sheds his
collaboration with Elliot Goldenthal (from
S.W.A.T.) in favor of
the services of veteran television composer Christophe Beck, who has
been slowly expanding his credits on large budget feature films in the
past few years.
Though having scored over 40 films thus far, most of
Beck's popularity extends back to his Emmy-winning music for the
Buffy: The Vampire Slayer television series. Early in 2005, his
score for the comic spin-off
Elektra utilized significant
electronic manipulation of a moderate orchestral ensemble, often
twisting the traditional, familiar sounds with textures of abstract
sound design. His reliance on the sound design continues in
The
Sentinel, with the intent of accentuating the highly technical
nature of a secret service chase. Unfortunately, Beck dunks the score do
deep into the barrel of sonic techno jargon that he completely loses the
human element of the story. His 85-member ensemble lacks woodwinds,
doubling up on the brass, and while the brass and percussion are evident
throughout the score, the few appearances by the strings are often
swallowed up by the harsh tones of the underlying rhythms or sound
effects. In the most basic sense, this score succeeds in pace. But in
his effort to punctuate the elements of surveillance and other gadgets,
Beck creates a score that seems to come from Graeme Revell's (or half a
dozen others') sound design library, with little originality defining
this work. Each cue plays like it's simply a sample of the next
synthetic rhythm in the library, as though Beck kept toggling down the
list with indecision. A slight thematic base developed by brass in the
opening cue is absent from most of these meandering cues of seemingly
random samples (an exception is the more serviceable "No Second
Shot").
|
|
|
 |
| |
|
| | |
|
Only $9.99
| | | |
|
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of
The
Sentinel is that these rhythms don't have much in common, leaving no
sound effect to even define the score. In most cases, these electronic
samples are tolerable, though in a cue like "Garrison's Polygraph," the
stuttering rhythm more closely resembles distortion than music, and
while the concept of flunking a polygraph under intense circumstances
certainly calls for tense music, degeneration to distortion is an
unnecessary shortcut. On a larger level, the more interesting aspect of
Beck's failure here is in the total lack of nobility in the score.
There's nothing remotely presidential about this score; it's cold at
every turn, distant in its emotions, and the film is far from that. For
a thriller in outer space, Beck's score would be far more successful.
But for a film with American flags throughout and the security of the
world's most powerful man in doubt, there needs to be an ability for the
score to transcend the dull synthetic realm of mundane B-rate horror
thrillers. On occasion, such as in "City Hall," Beck employs a generic
snare to represent the militaristic side of the presidency, though even
this element is mixed with muted distance. Utilizing the synthetic
rhythms isn't the downfall of Beck's score; in fact the film definitely
needed that sophisticated identity. In a highly personal, human tale
such as
The Sentinel, however, Beck got carried away with his own
ability to pump the movie full of sound design and neglected to
internalize the larger emotions in the story. Without any vibrance
whatsoever, an extended listening experience of
The Sentinel on
album (50+ minutes) offers nothing memorable. A significant
disappointment.
* Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download
The insert includes a list of performers, but no extra information about the score or film.
