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| Silvestri |
Judgment Night: (Alan Silvestri) The lesson: If you
want to attend a boxing match in a big city, don't rent a recreational
vehicle to go there and then hit a guy while trying to find a shortcut
in traffic. Four young male dorks do just that, and they find themselves
stuck in a terrible part of Chicago and witness a gang murder.
Naturally, the lead criminal conducting that execution decides to knock
off the four regular dudes who saw his handiwork, and the entire movie
is a chase through wretched inner-city conditions as these men try to
elude the gang. They meet a whole lot of destitute people and bullets
along their journey, and if anything is truly learned by watching 1993's
Judgment Night, it's that American cities suck. Despite some
moderate B-rate star power, the film was largely shrugged off and
yielded a sizable loss for the studio. A little more successful was the
rap and rock soundtrack, which was the major focus of the music in the
film and managed to sell impressively on CD. By comparison, the original
score by Alan Silvestri is an anonymous afterthought. The composer had
managed to weave his music into another song-defined film,
The
Bodyguard, not long before, and the strategy is roughly the same
here. While Silvestri had provided his other song-dominated soundtracks
of the early 1990's with fairly well-developed scores, this one is a
definite clunker by comparison. He had previously collaborated with
director Stephen Hopkins on
Predator 2, and you can tell that the
prior work had been applied as a temp track to
Judgment Night.
Still, narrative restraint must have been an explicit directive of the
composer, because Silvestri rarely provided music of this level of
atmospheric irrelevance even in his early years. His initial approach,
recorded with electronic instruments only, was not utilized, and it was
here that he strove for a more melodic and engaging presence. Instead,
the final rendering, while mostly orchestral, is far less interesting.
The performance ensemble is darkly appropriated, and the mix is
impressively wet.
A significant amount of grinding metallic textures are
applied for the urban suspense environment in
Judgment Night. Its
whining string effects over metallic or glassy effects is straight from
the creep motif in
The Bodyguard. An abundance of sudden
percussive stingers distracts without much substance to them for moments
of fright, mainly singular strikes of metallic objects. The presence of
an electronic wind element provides oddly exotic tones to "Ray's Deal"
and flirts with a few other cues. The score's action is moderate but not
on par with Silvestri's usual output, and the two themes are barely
impactful. The main identity is a weak idea with no actual resonance, an
ascending structure for the lead group of protagonists that suggests
minimal hope with a touch of
Predator fantasy. It debuts at 0:39
and 4:16 into "New Passenger," recurs at 1:27 into "Train Yard" in
abbreviated form, and proceeds with restraint at 1:41 into "Bat Woman."
It's barely intact at the start of "Ladder Crossing" in the lowest
registers but emerges in full form at 5:02 and to a lesser extent at
8:49 on strings. The main theme starts "Hello Ladies" and extends into
new territory on French horn. It elevates beyond the villain material at
1:21 into "Mike Shoots Sykes," including the electronic wind instrument,
and punctuates the action early in "Final Fight" with greater intensity.
It's a totally forgettable melody, but even less memorable is the
alternative for the villains. Whereas a score like
Blown Away has
very distinct ideas for good and evil squaring off intelligently in the
music, the identities here are a heap of mush. The villain theme employs
a bed of jungle rhythms and timpani pounding under ominous brass figures
from
Predator 2, and while that sound worked fine for an alien
creature with prior jungle connotations in that film, the whole urban
jungle aspect is a little weird here. The melody is previewed on
restrained brass tones at 1:40 into "Freeway Confrontation," but most
listeners won't bother to notice. The idea bursts at the start of
"Execution" with broad whole notes above, excellent reverb in cue
assisting in the nightmarish tone of the experience.
The wet mixing technique for the chase music continues
in "Train Yard" with frightening brass bursts. Silvestri uses the theme
to stalk with timpani hits and then the jungle element late in "Some
'Splainin' to Do," the brass exposition in these cues being the only
vibrant and engaging portions of the entire work. This mode erupts in
the middle of "Ray Eats It" for a killing scene, blows up the middle of
"Hello Ladies" like a pursuing alien creature, the good reverb
returning, and reduces early in "Mike Shoots Sykes" for suspense. This
material resumes its pursuit form a minute into "All I Got is You" and
again at the cue's end while the the groaning melody stalks in the
middle of "Final Fight." Thematically, that's about it. Silvestri's
unused main theme was set against an underlying rhythm that is rather
simple but moderately hypnotic. The melody contains 8-note and 9-note
phrases of static progressions with no secondary sequences. Summarized
electronically in "Judgment Night Theme," the melody starts at 0:28 and
gains more volume with each performance over the rambling rhythm. It
persists with tolling chimes at 0:12 into the rejected "Frank Takes the
Wheel" and dominant at the cue's end. In the final score, this identity
only seems to inform the restrained brass tones at 1:40 into "Freeway
Confrontation." Overall, only the moments of heightened action will
appeal in
Judgment Night. About ten minutes of this material
could be combined into an engaging suite, and the rest of it is muck.
You're better served listening to the glorious end title arrangement for
Predator 2 for a much better variation on the same idea. The lone
score album for this film, a limited 2005 Intrada Records product, is
way too long, with "New Passenger" and "Ladder Crossing" largely
pointless cues. "Make a Stand" is a very strangely out of place, a far
too positive moment, and the tone late in "Mike Shoots Sykes" is
similarly too shallow and awkward. The totally ambient synth and string
haze of "Stalk & Talk" accomplishes no narrative purpose, either. That
presentation ends with one of the least interesting false resolution
cues (and obligatory stingers) ever in "It's Over." This music
represents Silvestri at his least interesting, and although it's never
truly obnoxious apart from the film, it offers listeners very little to
appreciate.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For Alan Silvestri reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.31
(in 58 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.21
(in 42,809 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes notes about the score and film.
