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Interestingly, though, where the melodrama of that earlier score fit the tragedy of its titular character fairly well, the strategy doesn't really yield success in Donnie Brasco given the lack of accompanying suspense and action parts. In fact, Doyle's music simply fails to engage the story well enough to have an appropriate impact on certain scenes in the film. A conventional orchestral ensemble is employed, with few specialty accents outside of percussion and an electric bass in "Donnie & the Morman" and "The Shoot-Out" and synthesizer in "The Call." The demeanor is sour from the start, the composer's tone drab and defeated. There is very little genuine suspense in any of this music, surprisingly, which means that the atmosphere is one of simmering drama only. There isn't much tragedy in the equation this time, either, no significant dose of hope and therefore a lack of fall from grace. Everything is dark and brooding, even in the more tonally pleasing portions when a touch of warmth tries to thaw the material for the pair of leads. The score's two themes find themselves hopelessly entangled throughout the score; the main identity for Brasco and Ruggiero supplying quietly agonized drama while the similar theme for the mafia business in general has a little more volume but still stews more often than not. The main theme for the two men can be surprisingly romantic but elusive in its swaying, ascending and descending lines, a very long-lined identity recognizable by its descending secondary phrases. Starting softly in "Lonely Man" and quietly interrupted by the mafia theme, the main theme gains some deeper gravity at the end of the cue. Its fragments provide some suspense in "A Friend of Mine," turning darker late in the cue, and flute carries the idea early in "You Like the Moustache?" before shifting to strings later. This idea is faintly nervous in the ambience of "Donnie Gets Involved," laments on clarinet in "This Ain't New York," and becomes grim at the outset of "Donnie & the Morman." A solo trumpet and then trombone carry some nobility for it in "You Belong to Me Now," one of the more evocative moments in the score as the theme builds to more dramatic swells.

The main theme for Brasco and Ruggiero slows for cellos in "Father and Son," where it achieves a deeper connection. It develops out of anxious, plucked rhythms in the middle of "Dust Off the Guns" but can't sustain itself in "Lefty Sees the Light." The idea explodes into a massively dramatic symphonic moment at 1:28 into "Donnie's Taken Out" for the climactic extraction; this music sounds badly overplayed in the film, causing conflicts with the dialogue of the scene, but it's easily the most impressive passage on the album. In the story's wrap-up, the theme is tortured over thumping percussion in "The Real Donnie," and a solo violin expresses sadness for the theme in "The Final Call." In the score's closing suite, the main theme serves at 0:31 into "Donnie and Lefty" in interlude mode for the mafia theme, returning on clarinet at 2:03 and oboe and trumpet at 3:30. That mafia theme has more static progressions and debuts at 0:25 into "Lonely Man." It achieves some false hope in the middle of "You Like the Moustache?" and can't be separated from the middle of the drama in "Father and Son." It returns at the start and end of "The Raid," where it doesn't really boost the scene at all, and it inverts into a more fearful variant in "The Call" and "The Shoot-Out." The theme emerges from the early agony in "The Real Donnie" as the group learns they are ratted out and opens "Donnie and Lefty" on solo cello, recurring in the suite at 1:19 and 2:52. Most of the score for Donnie Brasco is dominated by these two themes, but there are a few unique diversions, including the worried, percussive rhythms of "New Car." The very bright and cheery enthusiasm of "Mickey Mantle Arrives" is a rare happy spot in score. The first half of "Donnie's Taken Out" is almost a maddening suspicion or FBI motif for choppy strings. Otherwise, though, the score is extremely consistent in its gloomy tone, making for a pretty smooth listening experience without any stingers or real action material. The score has always seemed lacking in the weight of its drama, however, Doyle taking a more conservative tact than necessary. The film's story, however, isn't all that exciting, so perhaps the composer was hamstrung by the fact that it strays toward a documentary personality. The 37-minute album contains no source material and struggles to retain your attention, the closing suite the only recommended inclusion on a Doyle compilation.  **   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Patrick Doyle reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.67 (in 42 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.39 (in 27,998 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.

Total Time: 36:56