Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you appreciate Basil Poledouris' predictably muscular action material for synthesizer and orchestra, even if it doesn't contain the composer's typical melodic statements. Avoid it... if just four or five cues of bold orchestral adventure cannot compensate for several lengthy passages of far less interesting ambient sound design. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Switchback: (Basil Poledouris) After a successful screenplay for The Fugitive, Jeb Stuart wrote and directed for the first time in Switchback, a taut serial killer and chase thriller that weaves its way through the picturesque Rocky Mountains. Unlike many films in its genre, Switchback uses lengthy screen time setting up its primary four characters for their ultimate showdown, a conclusion not perhaps as intelligent as its setup. Respectably good, but ultimately forgettable, the film featured a score by veteran composer Basil Poledouris, who was in the last flurry of superior mainstream activity before his career slowly descended into obscurity. The year of 1997 was particularly fruitful for Poledouris, with both Breakdown and Switchback providing the vast expanses of America's landscape with suspenseful and occasionally explosive scores, and topping off the year with Starship Troopers, which commanded a larger, sci-fi oriented audience. None of the three scores, interestingly, was initially treated with an album that satisfied Poledouris' fans, though the 2000 release of Switchback by Intrada Records is both definitive and, for the label, historically significant. The contents of Poledouris' score are predictable and won't break any new ground for the vast majority of the composer's collectors. The style of the music is at the upper end of your run of the mill, stock action variety, utilizing elements all very familiar to Poledouris' career. A brass and percussion-heavy orchestral mix is augmented by unique sound design, and the few cues that combine the composer's tendency to create strong rhythms with his electronics and let rip with muscular orchestral action over the top are the highlights. The brutally propulsive aspect of Poledouris' writing in these circumstances is quite entertaining, though you hear less of that sound in Switchback than you might expect. That, combined with a rather flimsy thematic design throughout the score (and surprisingly so), creates a sufficient score that is interesting on album, but nothing more. Poledouris uses a straightforward three-note structure as the thematic basis for the work, always progressing through the notes in the same major-key scheme but often involving the idea inside other fragmented statements. You hear this idea immediately on flute at the start of "Going West," and the most forceful permutations exist on blaring brass in "Buck's Sendoff" and "Rude Awakening." The simplicity of the theme afforded Poledouris easy functionality (a tactic that Jerry Goldsmith used for his stock action scores like U.S. Marshals at the time), but it doesn't provide for a particularly melodic listening experience. None of the three-note variations really has time to sink it. During the conclusion of "Andy's Return," Poledouris does explore a more extended, lyrical idea, both at the start and end of that redeeming cue. The bold, harmonic statements by brass in Switchback are often ambiguous in theme, but they, like the rest of the score, compensate with the sheer power and size of the performing orchestra. The Seattle recording quality is better than some that came from the region at the time, and it is because of the elevated volume of the ensemble that Switchback is a functional score in its action sequences. Lesser motifs do tend, like the title theme variants, to get lost in the equation. Only once the "218" train (a character in and of itself) becomes involved well into the film does Poledouris kick the score into its highest gear, utilizing an impressive array of timpani, electronic rhythms, and brass. The use of drums and synthesizers to mimic the chugging of a steam train (twice in the last moments of "The 218") is entertainingly creative. Several of the cues in the middle portion of the album are disappointingly bland, with extended moments of slightly dissonant, ambient electronic droning that plays poorly on album. On the other hand, one positive aspect of the score's non-descript action cues and minimally textured conversational cues is the consistency that they create on album. Without one dominant theme or motif, the score has no particular high or low points; it melds together for 40+ minutes of leveled background music. The product was the first volume in Intrada's long line of "Special Collection" releases, and sold out relatively quickly. It established the high production values that producer Douglass Fake has instilled on the entire series. For a complete listening experience, the outtakes and electronic cues of ambience from Switchback are presented in a suite at the end of the album, with only some slight rearrangement of previous cues for purposes of flow. Meanwhile, Switchback is a good score for appreciation by Poledouris collectors, but it doesn't feature the outward highlights that Starship Troopers, Under Siege 2, or others of the era contain. It may attract attention from fans of Goldsmith's conservative action scores of the 1990's, though with its scarcity on the market, it may not be worth the expense. *** Track Listings:
Total Time: 54:01
All artwork and sound clips from Switchback are Copyright © 2000, Intrada 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 10/12/00, updated 7/20/08. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2000-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
