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Hidden in this seemingly ridiculous, tongue and cheek score is music that is, compared to the vast majority of soundtracks on the market in the digital age, remarkably original in tone and bursting with personality at every moment. To achieve a sound appropriate for a scene of absurd Hawaiian crime in The Big Bounce, Clinton lays down a bed of slow, lazy jazz rhythms below instrumentation that you don't often hear in post-2000 scores but is remarkably effective in its jabs at Hawaiian stereotypes. An orchestra consisting of a moderate string section, a handful of woodwinds, a few French horns, and a percussionist or two plays a purely background role to the soloists who perform on the Hawaiian lap steel, ukulele, baritone sax, and more contemporary percussion. The lap steel, ukulele, and flighty woodwinds (in the innocent style of yesteryear) cause the score to drip with common conceptions of Hawaiian flavor, almost to a fault, but keep in mind that the characters and location in the plot are just as much "over the top" as the score, so the tone well serves the comedy purposes. The sax ripples with the familiar burps and echoes heard in Wild Things, and while The Big Bounce churns with the same sensual rhythms as the prior score, Clinton replaces the heavy drums and electric guitars with the plucking string section of the orchestra, producing a more high-crime, big-band era feel. The brass section seems to only perform in "The Body" near the end, while the piano often rumbles through soft and pleasant themes when the score is at its most sincere. Those hearty moments, however, are not the fun parts of The Big Bounce. If you get hooked on this score, then it will be cues such as "Upstairs/Downstairs," which allows the deep sax to set the most purely infectious rhythm of the score, and "Main Title," which unleashes all of the sound effects and specialty instruments in one piano-rambling statement of the main theme, complete with the simply hilarious sounds of male exertion. You almost wish these expressions ("Hay!" and "Hee!") were included throughout the rest of the score. The sappy finale cue, "Sail Away," concludes with 45 ultra-happy seconds of carefree ensemble joy reminiscent of Randy Newman's 1950's throwback tones. There is personality in The Big Bounce that reminds of early Danny Elfman in its ability to be thoroughly silly without restraint, and if you enjoy scores that rank highly on the "fun meter," then The Big Bounce will cause you to leak some energy out of your feet.  ****   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Total Time: 35:01