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Review of Law Abiding Citizen (Brian Tyler)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if there are no limits to your desire to hear yet another
predictably effective Brian Tyler action/thriller score.
Avoid it... if the composer's sufficient but rather mundane methodology for this type of hybrid orchestra/synthesizer music fails to connect with you in ways similar to equally generic B-rate Remote Control efforts.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Law Abiding Citizen: (Brian Tyler) All too often in
the revenge thriller genre, the victim who takes the law into his own
hands turns out to be a nasty professional killer of some kind,
completely negating the potential the genre has for pitting a truly
motivated and overperforming everyday novice against the authorities
trying to stop him. That's precisely the problem with 2009's Law
Abiding Citizen. After a seemingly normal guy sees his wife and
daughter raped and killed, the perpetrators let off easily because of
botched evidence handling, he decides to act on his own vengeful
interests. Fine. In fact, great! But why does it have to be revealed
that he is actually a veteran assassin trained in disposing of people in
unconventional ways? Of course, showing people die spectacularly is part
of attracting audiences, so Law Abiding Citizen had few
alternatives without taking an unnecessary chance. Gerard Butler is the
aggrieved assassin and Jamie Foxx is the prosecutor who is unfortunate
enough to become entangled with him. While the film did not enjoy a
particularly friendly response from critics, it did generate over $100
at the worldwide box office. Among director F. Gary Gray's more
enthusiastic endorsements for the film came in the form of hype he
generated over his collaboration with composer Brian Tyler. This kind of
assignment is all too familiar to Tyler, whose busy schedule in the late
2000's seemed clogged with action and thriller movies of dubious merit.
Every one of the reviews for his scores for these situations always has
to be prefaced with some lamentation over the fact that he has managed
to become boxed into these genres, to the detriment of an even better
career and a chance at major awards recognition. Among the younger
generation of composers, it has to be mentioned once again that Tyler is
one of the few who truly understands and appreciates the orchestral
history of film music while also maintaining the capability to play and
record dozens of instruments himself. His techniques at writing and
conducting an orchestra are beyond such muck as Law Abiding
Citizen, and yet his boring diet of such endeavors proves once again
that a steady stream of paychecks is hard to pass up. In the specific
case of this 2009 score, Tyler does what Tyler does best; he satisfies
the desires of the director and provides the safest music that could
have been expected for a film of this kind. In the process of going
through the motions, however, a transcendent sense of style still
remains elusive. The director asked for a "neo-noir" type of score, and
while Tyler approached that concept with the piano in mind, little
allure develops from that usage.
The methodology for Law Abiding Citizen is rather straight forward, and if it reminds you of how Hans Zimmer and his army of clones would have handled the picture, then cue up yet another piece of evidence supporting the complaints from film score collectors that Tyler has become an affordable proxy for the Remote Control sound. He pre-recorded his percussion and synthesizer lines and then assembled a roughly 50-piece orchestra consisting of strings and low brass. The strings alternate in application between the standard, largely harmonic brooding in the bass region by their lower members and the more aggressive, dissonant movements of the violins. Brass, led by French horns, simply boosts the resonance factor, supplying muscle. Most of the score presents some variation on standard action ostinatos or tense, dissonant anticipation of the next stinger. Tyler's performances on percussion are nicely layered but are also somewhat generic. Both piano and guitar supply interludes of contemplation that try, with only marginal success, to suggest echoes of the expected sounds of the typical suburban household. The guitar also seems to extend into the role of rhythm-setter at times. Other contributions include a variety of sampled effects typical to Tyler's library of sounds, whispy electronic swooshes or prickly, chime-like sounds dancing around in the background of several cues to give the score a contemporary edge. Tyler himself is credited as the vocal performer, though the distant vocalizations in support of a cue like "Designs" sound distinctly female. His thematic foundation for Law Abiding Citizen is based upon a multifaceted idea that churns in the bass region with a rhythm that seems to represent the momentary sense of movement in the picture (or the determination of the assassin) and a rather mundane theme of two similar lines dominated by a familiar opening four-note progression. This theme is almost omnipresent in the score, performed by either strings or piano (or simultaneously in "Predestined," among others) and does a pretty good job of wrapping the hazy atmosphere of the score into some semblance of a musical identity. When considered in sum, though, what Tyler wrote and recorded for Law Abiding Citizen is about as predictably boring as one could imagine. Like the similar scores provided by Graeme Revell and John Powell for Gray's previous films, Tyler's effort represents safely streamlined action/thriller music that makes very few attempts to reinvent the genre's expected sound. On album, the "CD on demand" and download product contains none of the film's prominent song placements (including Grand Funk Railroad's closing song) and is a consistent, basically sufficient listening experience with no strikingly individual highlights. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 54:56
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes a brief note from the director about the score, as well
as some photography from the recording stage. As in many of Amazon.com's "CDr on
demand" products, the packaging smells incredibly foul when new.
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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 Law Abiding Citizen are Copyright © 2009, Downtown Music and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 3/22/11 (and not updated significantly since). |
