| CLOSE WINDOW |
|
FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Flight of the Intruder (Basil Poledouris)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you can be satisfied with a dull but sufficient
extension of the basic war genre sound you heard in The Hunt for Red
October, in this case bracketed by a ridiculously transparent
primary theme of heroic bravado.
Avoid it... if you seek an engaging score with any truly intelligent, fresh constructs or dynamic performances from orchestra and synthesizers, elements that you often find well balanced in Basil Poledouris' works but not here.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Flight of the Intruder: (Basil Poledouris) Director
John Milius' 1991 translation of the popular Stephen Coonts novel came
under much criticism at the time of Flight of the Intruder's
release. Viewers who had appreciated the novel sharply criticized the
adaptation, claiming that much of the intrigue involving the
intelligent, politically complex portion of the plot was replaced with
black and white wartime situations that make for good, dumbed-down
American cinema. For the story of A-6 fighter pilots during Vietnam of
the early 1970's, the characters, while maintaining flight names such as
Cowboy, Razor, Rabbit, or Tiger, didn't closely resemble their
counterparts from the book as well, further irritating Coonts' readers.
Still, adaptations of techno-thriller war novels to the big screen were
a hot idea in the early 1990's, with The Hunt for Red October
opening the box office floodgates to potential mega-profit imitations.
Unfortunately, debilitating post-production difficulties with Flight
of the Intruder contributed to a lack of momentum for the project
that ultimately yielded a dismal public response and essentially
concluded Milius' directorial career. Composer Basil Poledouris had by
chance been the composer of the popular score for Hunt for Red
October, and his friendship and working partnership with Milius
would make him an immediate choice to score Flight of the
Intruder the next year. By 1991, Milius and Poledouris already
enjoyed half a dozen collaborations, many of them existing in the war or
action genres and their most successful ventures being the 1980's hits
Conan the Barbarian and Red Dawn. Poledouris felt so
strongly about his loyalty to Milius that he backed out of his
assignment to Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolves because the
post-production parts of Flight of the Intruder relating to the
score would overlap the Costner production by two weeks. In an
intriguing and frustrating development, however, Flight of the
Intruder was delayed by half a year, opening up the entire time in
which John Barry scored Dances With Wolves. It has been
speculated endlessly that Poledouris, in the process of leaving the
award-caliber film for Milius' ridiculous venture, cost himself his best
shot at an Academy Award nomination and win. The criticism of Flight
of the Intruder would catch up to Poledouris' score as well, for
several critics claimed upon release that the music is one of the
reasons why the film failed to maintain the novel's intelligence and
degenerated into the realm of mindless action. Indeed, it is a very
simple, straight forward piece of music.
The composer's contribution to Flight of the Intruder is patriotic where appropriate, pulsating with snare rhythms during action sequences, and subdued with ambiguity in places in between. As before, Poledouris employed a moderately sized orchestra for the project and then mixed in his own array of modern sound effects to satisfy the military genre and nautical locale. The main theme, developing its heroism progressively until announcing departure and rescue scenes with bravado, is one of Poledouris' most transparent career ideas; it was obviously aimed at the same narrow audience as the film in its whole. The theme is robust and overflowing with patriotic testosterone, but it suffers from the same kind of brutish attitude that left former pilots wondering why so many of the flying scenes in the film were unrealistic. Its tone on album is distractingly upbeat as a result. There is basic suspense in the score, a descending six-note phrase generic and utilized too often (a good alternate in "Iron Hand Mission" and "Camparelli Crashes" is comparatively shunned). Slight, exotic woodwind effects for the Vietnamese element are likewise rather tepid. One snare-led preparation motif is an exact replica of the one used for the Americans in The Hunt for Red October. As such, Flight of the Intruder does seem like an extension or sequel score in parts. The electronics this time, however, are not as well handled, with some of the chosen rhythmic effects reverberating with a bit too much of an underwater echo mixture. The tingling, steady bass electronics that Poledouris relied upon in his other sea-faring scores are largely absent in Flight of the Intruder as well, and they are missed. For the flying sequences themselves, Poledouris abandons the graceful kind of writing that he produced for Flyers and instead continues the tone of testosterone-driven force in simple fashion. When denoting tragedy, as in the opening "Morg's Death," the presence is too slight, lacking a poignant dramatic touch in the process of attempting disillusionment. Thus, the emotional depth of the score is minimal, and the work only serves as a good listening experience if you desire your stock military action without much genuinely contemplative thought. Surprisingly, the score for Flight of the Intruder was never released commercially in 1991, despite Poledouris' considerable popularity during that era. A widely circulated bootleg with several different covers existed since the mid-1990's, however, every variant offering the same 45 minutes of Poledouris material in very good sound quality. In 2013, Intrada Records finally provided official treatment to the work in limited album form, adding a few minutes of bonus material and cleaning up the presentation. Overall, though, it's a very average war score that requires you to turn off your brain. **
TRACK LISTINGS:
1997 Bootlegs:
Total Time: 44:21
2013 Intrada Album: Total Time: 55:14
NOTES & QUOTES:
The inserts of the bootlegs are haphazardly designed, with no extra
information about the score or film. That of the 2013 Intrada album includes
detailed information about both.
Copyright ©
2003-2024, 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 Flight of the Intruder are Copyright © 1997, 2013, Soundtrack Library Bootleg, Intrada Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 7/12/03 and last updated 2/24/13. |
