Buy it... only if you are prepared for one of Williams' most oppressing and gloomy scores of heavy drama.

Avoid it... if you don't prefer Williams' use of synthesizers and ambience as a substitute for orchestral focus and thematic presence.

Williams

Sleepers: (John Williams) The only score of 1996 for legendary composer John Williams would also serve as his first collaboration with director Barry Levinson. For the film adaptation of Lorenzo Carcaterra's novel, Levinson assembled an outstanding principle cast for Sleepers. The story of torture, homophobia, and vengeance claimed in the opening line of the film to be based on true events, a somewhat unsubstantiated point of controversy surrounding the film at the time of its release. Whether true or not, the subject matter of Sleepers is unpleasant at best. Four boys growing up on the west side of New York steal a hot dog wagon for fun and the runaway cart accidentally crushes a bystander. While consequently in a reformatory, they are sexually and physically abused by a cruel and perverted guard. Twenty years later, in 1981, two of the boys kill the guard and the other two, a lawyer and a journalist, become involved in a conspiracy to cover their tracks and clear their names of the crime. Topics of honor, religion, revenge, and morality all abound in Sleepers, with depths of character observation that float the film aided by the success of the plot and its genuine depictions of the New York setting. For Williams, the mid-1990's were a period in his career when he had left behind the adventuresome themes of action and fantasy; his projects had dwindled in number and gravitated towards topics of a more serious, dramatic nature. While his scores after his outstanding 1993 duo, extending through Saving Private Ryan five years later, remain less memorable for casual film music collectors, much of his work during that time is not only fascinating to study, but it still characteristically continued to garner Academy Award nominations for the composer. An odd entry for Williams in this era was Sleepers, a score reaching outside of his usual harmonious, tonal nature and creeping in the realm of the tormented psyche. For many Williams collectors, Sleepers is an above average entry, a crafty and understated score that makes for a superior background listen. While this may be partially true, Sleepers also suffers from a complete lack of center and focus, causing its identity to be defined, ironically, by its lack of identity.

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It's not often that Williams allows synthesizers to dominate his scores; in the 1990's and beyond, they have served only an auxiliary role. But anyone who remembers back to Heartbeeps will recall that Williams has the capability of conjuring some really uncharacteristic sounds with an array of electronics at the forefront. He does this in Sleepers, combining his synthesizers with a traditional orchestra in methods that will likely startle you as much as the score did for veteran Williams listeners when it debuted. Along with keyboarding effects, Williams utilizes an electronic bass with a heavy hand, causing a significant portion of the score to drone as solo instruments from the orchestra meander in the distance. Harsh keyboarding tones from JFK ramble without remorse, and metallic sounds tear and rip over the score's several highly dissonant crescendos of pure noise. Williams' rhythms in Sleepers nearly save it from its own despair, frantically whipping up a frenzy in short bursts that never manage to assert themselves by the end. It is this inconsistency in sound the causes Sleepers to be disjointed beyond repair. We hear typical Williams' sounds and thematic motifs hinted at every turn, but none of them is ever established over another. The concert piece for Sleepers is the orchestral "Hell's Kitchen," which features a fragmented line that serves as Williams' only theme from the film. Its intentionally wandering focus, even with entire ensemble in charge, makes it difficult to remember beyond its few satisfying chord progressions. Most of these progressions will remind the listener of Williams' disaster themes of the 1970's, although after this concert statement, he reminds us that Sleepers is not a 70's score. In "The Football Game," Williams offers the most interesting and enjoyable idea from the score: an all-out, rhythmically charged scherzo with rambling piano and bass highlighted by sharp brass notes and a modern percussive sense of "coolness." After this cue, Williams then turns to a liturgical choral piece for "Saying the Rosary" before diving once again into the murky depths of his synthesizers. It's this kind of schizophrenic movement that causes the demise of Sleepers. You get the impression that Williams was attempting to repeat the stark suspense of Presumed Innocent and fuse it with some of the raw energy from JFK. But without a clear thematic construct, or even a consistent instrumental execution, however, Sleepers fails at that task. The only thing it leaves you with is a feeling of gloomy discomfort... which was probably the intent, but it makes for a poor listening experience. **

Bias Check:

For John Williams reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.72 (in 63 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.67 (in 299,176 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.