This is part of a series. The prior installments can be found below:
Part 1: https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=141012
Part 2: https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=141088
Part 3: https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=142208
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The Clien
A legal thriller based on the 1993 novel of the same name by prolific American author John Grisham (who’s work adapted to film made bank at the box office in the first half of the 90’s including The Firm, The Pelican Brief and A Time to Kill), The Client follows a handful of plot threads with the two primary ones centering around a young boy (Brad Renfro) who accidentally gets entangled with a mob plot and thus becomes the prime witness for a court case. For any faults that the film has, the cast is absolutely stacked with “oh, that person!!” players for the mid-90’s including Tommy Lee Jones, Susan Sarandon, Mary-Louise Parker, Will Patton, Bradley Whitford, William H. Macy, Will Patton, J.T Walsh and Anthony Heald… unfortunately the film itself is a slog to get through and honestly should not have been two hours. I ended up skipping around after the first half hour, if that tells you anything. Director Joel Schumacher (yes, THAT Schumacher) does try to inject some style into the proceedings but it’s not enough to save the picture which apparently was felt at the time as the film did well enough commercially but was not a mega hit of the same level as earlier Grisham adaptations had been.
As for the music… well, I’ll keep this brief. It’s Howard Shore doing Howard Shore things seemingly on autopilot with the most striking elements being some non-typical instrumentation including electric organ, acoustic guitar and assorted clanging metallic percussion (including a Synclavier, I’m pretty sure). Frustratingly these interesting colours mostly get a “cameo” treatment in a single track before departing the work as a whole, though the organ does act as a bookend for the young boy. When the acoustic guitar appears (mostly relating to Sarandon’s character) it sounds like the middle ground between Field of Dreams and Unforgiven, which is rather nice but again is rarely used. Everything else is essentially Silence of the Lambs Uber-lite which means there’s nothing of real note here despite being competently written/performed. Thematically there’s a couple of themes running around (summed up in “The Client”, “Reggie’s Theme” and “The End”) but don’t expect any of them to stick with you… outside of perhaps Shore’s standard descending four-note idea for villains or darker subject matter which dates all the way back to The Brood.
While The Client is both technically and enjoyably far superior to Scanners, this is probably going to get the same rating. For fans of the composer there’s absolutely nothing here that you haven’t heard done infinitely better elsewhere and for newcomers there’s plenty of better drama-thriller works by Shore you could explore instead of wasting your time with The Client. In short this is one of those times where the music fits the film well and is probably exactly what the production wanted… but that doesn’t automatically make it a “good” score.
SCORE:
1 1/2 out of 5
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Looking for Richard (1996)
Taking a completely different direction from all the prior films I’ve covered on this journey… how about a documentary? Not only a documentary, but one about William Shakespeare’s Richard III (the one with the “my kingdom for a horse!!!” line) and starring/directed by Al Pacino? Sounds great and the few meager clips I could find on YouTube look good… too bad I couldn’t watch it anywhere in full. Lots of noted Shakespeare actors are interviewed along with clips from a performance starring Pacino in the title role and some “on the street” interviews with random people (admittedly these last bits feel rather cringe, from what I saw). Anyway, the doc was apparently well received back in ’96 though seems to have fallen by the wayside since.
Of course the real star here, for us at least, is Howard Shore tackling the rich and unenviable task of writing music to accompany The Bard’s work… no-matter how tangentially it may be. To this end, I’m happy to report that… it’s rather good. Unless there’s a prior score that I’m not familiar with (quite possible), this is the first instance of Shore showcasing his mastery of large scale orchestral and choral writing which of course would end up the cornerstones of a little indie project called Lord of the Rings the following decade. With that in mind, Looking for Richard is a powerful work that does, sadly, falter slightly with Shore’s nasty habit of letting the material meander somewhat in the middle section though the intensity remains for the album’s full 45 minutes. For fans of LotR, there’s several early fragments of ideas that would blossom in those later works here including a full passage near the end that’s essentially a chunk of the used prologue to Fellowship of the Ring (the opening track of the 2001 CD). Outside of the inclusion of mixed adult choir, most of the remainder of the score is more firmly rooted in Shore’s drama and thriller stylings of the time which itself is interesting to hear brought to true operatic heights (even moreso than The Fly (1986) ).
The only real stumbling block that keeps this from earning a higher rating is that meandering middle portion of the album and that this is another Shore offering where the themes are a tad too nebulous for its own good. Those issues aside, I still highly recommend everyone checkout Looking for Richard at least once to hear the midway point between “old Shore” and the grand weaver of epic tapestries most of us know and adore him for in the following decade.
SCORE:
3 1/2 out of 5
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Crash (1996)
No, this isn’t the hilariously misguided and self-serious Oscar winner (…ugh…) about racism in Los Angeles told like a knockoff Pulp Fiction from a bunch of white dudes trying to let everyone know that everyone is racist and that that’s bad.
Instead this is the very family friendly story of a bunch of disillusioned adults in Toronto, Canada (the other CA) that come together (heh…) over their shared fixation of car wrecks and body modification via wounds. It’s an exploration of obsession, detachment from your fellow humans, sexual frustrations leading to the bizarre and the crumbling mental & emotional stability of a married couple. It also has a scene where James Spader has sex with a vagina-esque scar on Rosanna Arquette’s thigh… and graphically hooks up with Elias Koteas in a convertible. Why yes, this was incredibly controversial when it premiered back in 1996 and it’s a David Cronenberg effort, why do you ask?
Based on the novel of the same name by J. G. Ballard from 1973, Crash immediately caused issues from its inclusion at Cannes Film Festival where Francis Ford Coppola railed against it to critics both praising the film and tearing it down in equal measure within their reviews. The whole thing is graphic enough that it still has an NC-17 rating attached to it… which in this case is well earned, honestly. Like many of Cronenberg’s efforts, Crash is a deeply unnerving film that is also incredibly well crafted with a hypnotic, dreamlike quality that draws you in and never lets go. Not for everyone (clearly) but if any of the above has piqued your interest, give it a shot.
Crash would mark the seventh overall collaboration between Shore and Cronenberg with their third of the 1990’s followed by eXistenZ at the end of the decade. Befitting a story about steel and icy relationships the majority of Shore’s music is centered around icy electric guitars, Synclavier and solo woodwinds with only the final third introducing a traditional string section with dramatic results (also foreshadowing both Rings and A History of Violence). The soundscape is both cold yet alluring helped immensely by a hypnotic, vaguely Herrmann-esque swirling central theme for electric guitar (“Crash”) and a woodwind based secondary idea for the more erotic thriller aspects (“Sexual Logic”). There’s also a few tracks where Shore goes fully atmospheric in a way not as typical for the composer which are largely the domain of the Synclavier and act as a foreshadowing to Cop Land the following year.
While Crash does become repetitive at points, as is common with some of Shore’s work, the thematic core and hypnotic, icy dreamlike tone of it all easily make this one of the more accessible Shore/Cronenberg collaborations. Two albums exist for this: the original 1997 Milan Records one that’s roughly 45 minutes long and the now readily available 2014 expanded edition from HOWE Records which clocks in at roughly 64 minutes including the complete score along with a bonus demo cue of the main title on piano (performed by Shore). While probably most Scoreboarder’s will need to whittle down the 2014 release to the “best” bits, I’d still recommend checking out this lesser discussed Shore effort if you want the weird Cronenberg thriller style but in a more digestible form. That said, probably deduct half a point or full point from my rating if this kinda thing isn’t your normal “cuppa tea”… wimps.
SCORE:
4/5
(Message edited on Wednesday, July 16, 2025, at 6:12 p.m. and Wednesday, July 16, 2025, at 6:14 p.m.)
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