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| Horner |
48 Hrs.: (James Horner) The origins of the "buddy
cop" subgenre of comedy law enforcement films date back to
48
Hrs. in 1982, a maligned production that had long stalled during the
making but turned into one of the year's most successful surprises at
the box office. Paramount was originally so dissatisfied with director
Walter Hill's film that the studio for a time indicated that it would
never distribute one of his films again. Part of the concern was the
bankability of co-star Eddie Murphy, who debuted here in a role as a
convict who helps a tough San Francisco cop (played with ease by Nick
Nolte) on the hunt for the gang of thugs that killed his partners. The
two actors and their characters hit it off, of course, and a single
hilarious scene with Murphy in a redneck bar solidified his big screen
career as a regular comic lead. Despite the relatively simple chase plot
and multitude of redundantly funny interactions between Nolte and
Murphy,
48 Hrs. received enough critical acclaim on top of the
substantial monetary returns to warrant a sequel in 1990. Hill has long
been associated with Westerns and his production of the
Alien
franchise, and while he rotated between an awkwardly wide variety of
composers for his films through the years, his collaborations with Jerry
Goldsmith and James Horner in the 1980's were among the most notable.
The assignment of Horner to
48 Hrs. allowed the rising composer
to branch out from his best known comfort zone in the science fiction
and budget horror genres, eventually yielding similarly styled sonic
wallpaper of a gritty, contemporary nature for Hill's
Red Heat
and
Another 48 Hrs. over the next eight years. Disappointingly,
while yielding a competent atmospheric sound appropriate to Hill's
desire for music that functions as purely a background filler element,
Horner's output for these films has never attracted much appreciation
when separated from its context. While Horner did receive praise for his
limited work for
48 Hrs., some of that recognition was likely a
result of the immense popularity of the songs by The BusBoys for the
film.
The smooth blend of rock and blues tones from The
BusBoys is largely consistent across its four songs for
48 Hrs.,
often utilized as source pieces in the story's bar and club sequences.
The end credits song, "The Boys Are Back in Town," is the best
remembered of these contributions, originally considered by producers as
the weakest of the lot but once again defying expectations. Horner's
score does attempt to emulate a very slight dose of the same
instrumental and genre character from the song placements, but it is,
per the director's wishes, largely a frightfully serious score meant to
accentuate the many action sequences. The instrumentation and constructs
of
48 Hrs. resemble a blend of saxophone, electronics, and steel
drums that not only foreshadows
Commando and
Red Heat but
also represents some of the least palatable music to ever be written by
the composer. An orchestra does assist in providing depth to the score,
but minus trumpets and French horns. Trombones and tubas perpetually
perform a single descending phrase from key in unison over and over
again, a monotonous mechanism used with much better results in
Brainstorm and even
Vibes. The rest of the orchestral
ensemble is mostly marginalized until the final chase cues, only the
piano a traditional element of significant presence. Its thundering bass
tones merge with tired, wandering lines of synthetic keyboarding that
become even more increasingly obnoxious as the score ages. The sax
performs the score's primary theme over a seven-note motif conveyed by
basses, both of which presented in the first minute of "Main Titles."
Unfortunately, none of these recurring motifs is particularly memorable,
meandering aimlessly in variations that make them difficult to follow or
care about. Horner does carry them over into
Another 48 Hrs., but
there is so little to like about the phrasing of these themes that the
continued use has a negligible impact in the sequel. The sax
performances in
48 Hrs. are nowhere near as stylish as Horner can
make them (revisit
Sneakers as an example), and the bass idea
becomes swallowed up in the dull droning of whole notes on the
synths.
Horner's fascination with steel drums as means of
representing contemporary coolness is still a bit odd given that the
instrument is more commonly associated with reggae music. (The source
cue "Aerobics" actually reminds of Mark Mancina's
Speed 2: Cruise
Control) Veteran Horner collectors may find their usage in
48
Hrs. to be predictable and boring. The only instrumental application
of interest for such listeners will be traditional band-inspired
percussion, the recording of the regular drums and cymbals slightly
wetter and thus more pronounced in a couple of cues. Since Hill chose to
spot the film with music very sparingly, Horner only wrote about 25
minutes of non-source material for it, and almost all of it addresses
the suspense and chase scenes. Within this subset, there is really no
development or evolution of ideas until the overdue killing of the
villain in "The Alley" brings the score to a sudden, depressingly sparse
set of piano thuds to close things out. The only upbeat cue is "Jack
Leaves Elaine's Apartment," with the aforementioned percussion joined by
hip electric bass and the sax performances of the primary theme.
Compared to Horner's otherwise downbeat score, the fifteen minutes of
songs from The BusBoys is a welcome relief. No soundtrack had ever been
released for
48 Hrs. until Intrada Records issued a short album
in 2011 with most of the score and the songs on one CD limited to 5,000
copies. The quality of that album was as satisfactory as could be
desired, with decent sound for a 1982 recording and an adequate
arrangement of the material. Still, the label managed to acquire better
sources for a 2022 release that improves the stereo spread of the
instruments and offers a handful of alternate mixes of Horner's cues.
Those alternates mostly present different handling of percussion. The
improved sound quality won't be enough reason alone for many collectors
to jump at the longer presentation, despite the film version of the
score being better paced on the 2022 product. It's hard to imagine that
either product will appeal much to even the most ardent Horner
collectors, though, because the music is a predictable reminder of a
period and genre in which the composer often underachieved. Approach
this one only with the intent to complete your Horner library.
* @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.15
(in 108 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.23
(in 203,344 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The inserts of both Intrada albums include a list of performers and notes about the
film, composer, score, and album assembly.
