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Review of Clear and Present Danger (James Horner)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you are roused by basically functional, patriotic
music that takes action to a brainless but evenly consistent level of
unoriginality.
Avoid it... if any small measure of James Horner's self-quotation habits make you grind your teeth, for he should have won an award for how thoroughly he adapts his previously written scores into this one.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Clear and Present Danger: (James Horner) After
beginning the original trilogy of Jack Ryan films with an overwhelming
cinematic (and soundtrack) success in the form of The Hunt for Red
October, the series of adaptations of Tom Clancy's novels to the big
screen progressed with less fanfare through Patriot Games and
Clear and Present Danger. While the first film had the advantage
of conveying the most interesting story and technology of the lot, the
subsequent entries suffered from a lack of self-importance as the
criminal attention turned more towards Ryan, his family, and
introspective topics of protagonist integrity rather than
larger-than-life events of global importance. Harrison Ford was almost
becoming typecast as "the average Joe who has to do something
extraordinary" during this time, and the sequel films (if they can
really be called that) took on a similarly formula-restricted approach
without any of the glamour of the 1990 film. Phillip Noyce's 1994 entry,
Clear and Present Danger, is still solid entertainment, however,
thanks to another gritty performance by Willem Dafoe as an unsung
veteran of invisible warfare, the striking elimination of a drug lord's
home by a missile, and a spectacular ambush sequence involving one hell
of an insurance claim on several Chevrolet Suburban SUVs. It's also
amusing to look back at how people saved files on (and desperately
deleted them from) computers during the early 1990's. Still, regardless
of the surprising fiscal success of Clear and Present Danger, the
less inspired methods of filmmaking in this franchise's later entries
translated directly to James Horner's sadly tepid and mostly forgotten
scores for the first two sequels. While his intention was certainly not
to try to match the impact of Basil Poledouris' popular score for The
Hunt for Red October on its film, Horner's work for the sequels is
easily out-classed by his predecessor. Weighed heavily by its own
ethnicity and electronic emphasis, Patriot Games remains one of
the most disappointing and marginally effective scores in Horner's
career.
For Clear and Present Danger, the setting and circumstances are far different from the prior films in the series, and yet just as Ford runs around looking worried in the same old way, Horner provides rehash after rehash of ideas in his final entry in the series. If the composer is to be definitively whipped in public for his frequent adaptation and blatant re-use of his own material, Clear and Present Danger is one of the more obvious points of evidence to use against him. Not only does he lift general ideas from his previous works in this score, but he obnoxiously and shamelessly copies and pastes significant sections of previously existing music note for note. Ironically, he even pulls a few interpretations from stock Jerry Goldsmith action music for the era as well, with a primary theme largely predicting where Goldsmith would venture in Air Force One (that's right, another film with Ford running around looking scared). The overall result is a dull, repetitious, and predictable listening experience with few lasting highlights. Without a doubt, Clear and Present Danger exhibits Horner on auto-pilot. While you have to give the man credit for at least conjuring some basically unique sense of direction for Patriot Games, as flawed as that score might have been, he tries absolutely nothing new here. A very bland title theme featuring simplistic, rising, patriotic progressions over annoyingly atonal bass chords (taking a page or two from the structures and demeanor of the final cues from In Country but without the same genuinely heroic tonalities) leaves the excitement at the door and fails to make any significant appearance throughout the mid-sections of the film, not even in veiled hints. Its obnoxious, chime-led performance in "End Title" is nearly insufferable. The only returning theme from Patriot Games is a whiny, descending motif representing the stench of bureaucratic dishonesty, and it occupies "Jack's New Office" and "Looking for Clues," among others, with its nearly intolerable sense of disillusionment, especially in its violin performances in the latter cue. Surprisingly, the lack of originality that prevails here applies to even the newly rearranged Horner sub-motifs for individual scenes. Among the rehashes in Clear and Present Danger, a nearly constant shakuhachi flute rhythm flutters in the distance (but not mixed with the same precision as in Legends of the Fall that year; at least the incorrect application of this ethnic instrument isn't really detrimental to this locale) over snare pronouncements that hail back to Glory. A wildly crashing piano pounds from high octaves to low ones with the same effect as in The Pelican Brief and other suspense scores from Horner. Brass broods in low ranges, forming mini-crescendos at each bar of music similar in style to Brainstorm. A selection of tapping and clicking sounds seems classified in the Horner sound library under the title of Sneakers. Many of the more tense action cues lift entire sequences from Aliens, which will be a certain annoyance for some listeners. Dull thuds from muddy, atmospheric synthesizers represent the worst that Horner has recorded over the years, with The Name of the Rose a prime example. The highlight cue "Deleting the Evidence" in particular could be deconstructed by musical scholars to reveal humorously innumerous connections to prior Horner scores. The only remotely interesting avenue that the composer explores in Clear and Present Danger, regardless of its roots in his 1980's thriller works, is the electronic keyboarding in "The Laser-Guided Missile" and "Escobedo's New Friend," but even this attempt to supply the villains in the film with their own style is lackluster in execution. Curiously, no Latin angle is explored in the instrumentation, suggesting that everything on screen is simply an American problem using the Latin drug wars as tools for domestic gain. Only in a few snippets throughout the score does Horner offer a short piece of music that elevates the film with striking appeal. The single piano notes and tapping of cymbals at the opening of "Operation Reciprocity" (repeated with brass to open "Second Hand Copter") and the explosively heroic climax of "The Ambush" offer brief glimpses of the quality of music that Clear and Present Danger probably deserved. That said, for a casual listener who could not care less about Horner's self-quotations, this score is adequate at worst and a smooth, brainless listening experience at best. If you took a long sabbatical from listening to vintage Horner music, then parts of Clear and Present Danger could be quite entertaining. For regular Horner collectors, however, you have either heard this music before in superior form in any one of the aforementioned scores or you would hear far better, infinitely more inspired executions of those ideas in his forthcoming work for Legends of the Fall, Apollo 13, and Courage Under Fire. Parts of it, in fact, would be tracked into Ransom. On album, the composer selected only about half of his composition for inclusion on the 51-minute 1994 Milan album that was repressed with identical contents in 2001. Sound quality was adequate, but the recording of this music was never as expressively dynamic as some of Horner's other, similar works. While this presentation did feature most of the notable cues from Clear and Present Danger, the score is among the composer's longest, and in 2013, Intrada Records released a 2-CD set featuring most of the recordings made by Horner for the film, amounting to nearly 100 minutes of material. The most notable additions come at the end of the product, with the action music from the final scenes of the film finally presented in complete and proper order. This includes a sub-motif of nobility and victory in "Finding the Prisoners" and "Woodroom/Finale" that builds to a monumental crescendo (and reappearance, finally, of the main theme) in the latter cue. Unfortunately, most of the additional music on the Intrada album consists of Horner's droning electronics or light rhythms from the ethnic flute, none of which unique enough to justify much renewed interest in the score on album. The cue "Blow Up Narcotics Plane" is so hideously reminiscent of Commando and Red Heat that it is a nearly fatal detriment to the longer presentation, while other, purely atmospheric sequences, such as "Casket Arrival" and "Greer's Last Hospital," are insufferably non-descript. In 2022, La-La Land Records presented a longer, slightly different presentation from better sources, emphasizing film versions of major cues but without much improvement. These 2-CD products are clearly aimed at the most ardent Horner fanbase and present little new to casual listeners. Overall, Clear and Present Danger offers ten minutes of exciting, engaging material split between "Operation Reciprocity" and "The Ambush," with the rest derivative to the point of futility. Regardless of which album you choose, don't expect clear and present originality. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
1994/2001 Milan Albums:
Total Time: 50:38
2013 Intrada Album: Total Time: 98:16
2022 La-La Land Album: Total Time: 117:07
* previously unreleased ** contains previously unreleased material *** contains material not used in the film
NOTES & QUOTES:
The Milan albums' inserts include no extra information about the score
or film. The 1994 insert does have the following, rather odd statement in bold
type: "Thanks to the Intel Corporation for use of the Pentium Processor." The
inserts of the 2013 Intrada and 2022 La-La Land albums feature notes about the
score, film, and/or recording.
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1998-2024, Filmtracks Publications. All rights reserved.
The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Clear and Present Danger are Copyright © 1994, 2001, 2013, 2022, Milan Entertainment, Milan Records, Intrada Records, La-La Land Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 6/15/98 and last updated 11/8/22. |
