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| Goldsmith |
Breakout: (Jerry Goldsmith) After
Death Wish
in 1974, Charles Bronson's career as a vigilante seeking justice or
money was as bankable as Clint Eastwood's equivalent. His character in
1975's
Breakout fit the bill once again, and the film was only as
successful as Bronson's name at the time. As for any particular merit in
Breakout, that can be deduced to Robert Duvall in a supporting
role, for Tom Gries' films were never fine art. They often did contain,
however, a score by composer Jerry Goldsmith. Movies with Latin
influences were commonplace in Goldsmith's career at the time, and in
Breakout, Bronson would be hired by the wife of a wrongly
arrested man to fly a helicopter across the border from America to
Mexico to rescue him from a stinky 28-year prison sentence. Once again,
Gries proves that Mexicans make good badguys, and Goldsmith is once
again willing to compensate for Gries' poor techniques with an
overachieving score. The two had collaborated on
100 Rifles,
which featured a Goldsmith score of complex Latin rhythms and
instrumentation over dissonant orchestral shades of gray.
Breakout wouldn't require the flair of the spaghetti Western, and
would ultimately be a far more simplistic score. While slowly pulling
away from the mass of straight Western scores that had been a staple of
his career in the previous decade, Goldsmith continued his output of
colorful and ethnically rich and complex scores. Most prevalent was his
knack for scores of Latin influence, and he succeeded in this genre
better than most every other composer in the history of film music,
culminating in the spectacular score for
Under Fire in 1983. By
comparison, Goldsmith's score for
Breakout is a minimalist
effort, a subtle score that requires a close listen to catch what fewer
complexities it attempts.
The Latin sound in
Breakout is not as blatant as
it is in many of his other works, which might come as a relief to
Goldsmith fans who don't care for his rather loud, dissonant, and wild
Mexican-influenced sequences. On a basic level,
Breakout has all
the elements of a Latin score of the flair of
100 Rifles, with
castanets, guitars, a xylophone, and snare drums (among others), however
none of these instruments dominates the tone or feel of the music.
Traditional orchestral elements balance the score, with Goldsmith's more
streamlined and serious action style of the 1970's better defining the
whole. The most unique parts of the score, interestingly, involve the
reflective and sensitive cues that Goldsmith scatters throughout the
brooding and melancholy whole. The woodwind and string performances
littered between "Hasty Exit" and "Farewells" (about 8 minutes of
material) offer extensions of Goldsmith's best, low-key melodic work at
the time. The finale, while possessing a few foul-ups in the brass
section, is an interesting early experiment with synthesizers (which
carry the main theme for a time) and as a whole, is the highlight of the
album. The rest of the latter half of the score is occupied by highly
energetic brass action cues, driven often by timpani and guitar. The
sudden splash made by "Border Crossing" is an additional highlight.
Overall,
Breakout is very average Goldsmith score for the time,
predictable and not as intelligently engaging as other Latin-flavored
entries by the composer. The album represented the second in the
Prometheus label's numbered "Limited Edition Club Release" series and
was limited to 2,500 copies. The sound quality is as can be expected for
a mid-1970's recording: not outstandingly crisp, but in listenable
stereo nonetheless. Amongst the plethora of other limited Goldsmith album
releases to hit the market in the late 1990's,
Breakout isn't a standout,
with only ten minutes of memorable action and thematic interludes worth
mentioning. It is definitely meant for hardcore Goldsmith collectors only.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.26
(in 128 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.28
(in 153,767 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert contains lengthy, though somewhat strange and borderline inaccurate
notes about the film and score by Gary Kester.
