The tone of the score is, not surprisingly, moody and
obscured in the shadows, brooding in the lower ranges of the ensemble
for nearly its entire length. Even before the tragedy at the outset of
the film and in the waning minutes of its resolution, there are no
moments of sunshine in this gloomy venture. Marianelli claims that his
aim with the score for
The Brave One was not to accentuate the
brief (though graphic) scenes of actual vigilante justice. Instead, he
attempted to reinforce the examination of "right and wrong" in the
duality of his score. While the constructs that he uses to convey this
internal struggle are adequate, and occasionally truly interesting, his
score fails to really pry open that box of horrors. Though intelligent,
his score doesn't raise the kind of contemplative ingenuity (in a
musical sense) that his listeners know he is capable of producing. His
theme for Erica (Foster) barely registers in its harmonic continuity.
The theme is there, in other words, but not so you'd really notice.
Performed primarily by piano with an interlude for acoustic guitar, the
theme appears to have aimed at capturing Erica's more contented
lifestyle pre-tragedy when, in fact, Marianelli doesn't really even to
attempt masking the turmoil to come. Further into the score, while you
do hear slight references on cello and other solo instruments to the
opening theme in the action sequences, you'll discover that the majority
of running time for Marianelli is assigned to inflective moments along
her journey to self-rediscovery. In moments like "Wedding Cards," among
many, Marianelli returns to the soft piano and string shades, once again
aided by guitar, that haunted the opening cue. Unfortunately, these cues
are so restrained in their statements that their emotional impact is
marginal at best.
When you put several of these softer cues together, you
begin yearning for the action pieces in
The Brave One, which,
conversely, better represent the typical designs of Marianelli's
suspense and action music of the past few years. The horror sequences
near the beginning of the score are standard dissonant passages for
strings and electronics, though the actual revenge cues later in the
score stir up hints of the composer's far more interesting rhythmic
tendencies. A string ostinato not unlike John Powell's chase motif for
The Bourne Identity (and its superior follow-ups) is fully
explored in "On the Prowl," and Marianelli allows the motif to build to
a frenzy by the time "Car Jam" and "Retribution" roll along. This
technique of slowly increasing the velocity of a rhythmic motif in a
score as a film builds to a climax is a definite Marianelli specialty.
By these final two tracks, the only aspects of these rhythms that
distinguish them from the powerful variants by Powell (and other Hans
Zimmer graduates, as well as Graeme Revell) is Marianelli's inescapably
weighty sense of gloom. During these rhythms, in addition to the
gruesome cues of violence near the outset, Marianelli once again
utilizes a wide variety of screeching metallic sound effects and light
percussion in the treble region. While the specialty instrumentation in
The Brave One may not be as creative as in many of his other
scores, it saves the effort from dwelling the depths of the mundane.
Still, Marianelli fans risk disappointment with this score, if only
because the development of the character split is not well enough
explored and the instrumentation doesn't spark enough interest to alone
raise
The Brave One to the level of his previous mainstream
efforts. It is a sufficient score with a few highlights possibly worth
inclusion on a Marianelli compilation, but it fails to grasp the realm
of true intrigue that constantly remains just out of its reach.
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