Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,047
Written 3/15/97, Revised 10/31/11
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Buy it... if you can never get enough of Jerry Goldsmith's
trademark brass blasts, drum machine hits, tense string plucking, and
children's lullabies, even if those elements don't congeal into anything
notably new in Malice.
Avoid it... if you have no interest in hearing what strives to be,
outside of the lullaby at either end of the score, a watered down
version of Basic Instinct's suspense material.
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| Goldsmith |
Malice: (Jerry Goldsmith) With a high caliber cast
and the same stylistically gloomy photography that Gordon Willis
provided for the films in the franchise of The Godfather, the
1993 thriller Malice scratches and claws in its attempt to mimic
the intellectual complexities of a genuine Alfred Hitchcock thriller.
After several revisions by multiple, independent screenwriters, the
story for Malice took on a life of its own, with so many
convoluted plotlines throughout its length that the film works simply on
the basic fact that it keeps you scratching your head in bewilderment
during every moment. Despite major logical fallacies, the suspect script
is floated by acting performances of Alec Baldwin (in a fitting role as
a surgeon with a God complex), Nicole Kidman (in the latter end of her
poofy hair days), Bill Pullman (who actually beats that "hopeless nice
guy" stereotype by the end), as well as enjoyable bit roles by veterans
Anne Bancroft and George C. Scott. It's no surprise that director and
co-producer Harold Becker would want to utilize the services of
experienced composer Jerry Goldsmith for Malice. Many of the
slick and crafty elements of the film were deemed to necessitate music
similar to that heard in the recently Oscar-nominated Basic
Instinct by the same composer, and, in the end, a watered-down
version of the Basic Instinct score is exactly what Malice
would get. Much has been said about how hard Goldsmith labored on his
music for Basic Instinct; the model of suspense was perhaps less
difficult for the composer to write than the incorporation of sensuality
into that model. For Malice, all Goldsmith needed to do was to
strip the sensuality factor out of the structures and instrumentation
that led to Basic Instinct's thrill and add a token variation on
the "Carol Anne Theme" from Poltergeist for devious reasons. The
combination is minimally sufficient, and it gets partially lost in the
film along with the parts of the story relating to logic, though
Goldsmith's contribution is not very interesting apart from the film. In
the composer's long history of producing ambient suspense music
punctuated by bright blasts of rhythmic action, Malice is just
one step above his insufferably droning, all-synthetic entries of the
middle to late-1980's.
Oddly positioned is Goldsmith's primary theme for
Malice, a lyrical identity that once again plays to the
sensibilities of a small child (there is one as an important auxiliary
character in
Malice), beginning with the style of a solo music
box and evolving into a pretty melody for small adult choir. At first,
this theme may seem to defeat the purpose of the film's demeanor, and
indeed, when it opens the end titles after the horrific resolution of
the film, it seems a tad out of place. But Goldsmith does temper the
generally happy, free-floating major-key idea with distinct, percussive
strikes later in the performances of the theme. The strikes are
decidedly off-key, and their integration into the choral theme
eventually becomes dominant as the voices and accompanying ensemble die
off at the conclusion. Goldsmith does reference this theme at a few
points throughout the score, but not without some effort to integrate it
into the often minor-key suspense scheme that maintains a perpetually
disturbed attitude during the entirety of the midsection. This suspense
music in this middle portion shares many characteristics with the
"traveling theme" and associated meandering in
Basic Instinct,
perhaps indicating temp-track direction. The balance between
synthesizers and orchestra, with drum machines and tingling sounds of
tapping metal often setting rhythms for the layered string section,
remains intact from the previous effort as well. More distinctly, the
piano rumbles in the depths of its lowest notes in almost identical
fashion, too. A plucked string rhythm slowly sets the pace in many of
the cues, foreshadowing the opening sub-motif of
The Shadow. The
only stand-out suspense cue in
Malice is "Clues," a piece that
opens with almost the same barrage of drum machine and brass blasts as
"Unending Story" from
Basic Instinct, followed by some of
Goldsmith's better, tense string writing. The lengthy rhythmic cycles in
this cue, stopping momentarily to quote the title theme, offer five or
so minutes of outstanding Goldsmith thrill and action. The finale of the
movie reveals its plot secrets in snapshot succession, causing Goldsmith
to pull out several extended crescendos of orchestral hits with the
drums at full volume. A brief moment of the composer's stylish piano
tones at 6:15 into "The Body" lends a contemporary touch much like the
end of
Criminal Law. Overall, the main theme of
Malice is
enticing, and the "Clues" cue is a strong candidate for a compilation of
Goldsmith best suspense music, but the rest of the score on its short
album presents far more recycled ideas than novel ones.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:
For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.23
(in 140 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.25
(in 154,807 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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