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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of The Negotiator (Graeme Revell)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... on the commercial album only if you seek the major action
cues and end credits from the film.
Avoid it... on the commercial album if you want to hear the opening credits or many of the pivotal choral pieces heard in the film.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
The Negotiator: (Graeme Revell) An above average
cop thriller that made an even bigger name for itself on endless
television showings, The Negotiator offers the idea that a
prestigious and respected police negotiator in a big city can be pushed
to such desperation that he himself takes hostages in the process of
trying to prove his innocence. A battle of the minds ensues between that
negotiator and the other, equally respected negotiator brought in to
talk him down. The two acting performances by Samuel L. Jackson and
Kevin Spacey as these negotiators are the highlight of the film,
squaring off in a witty game of trust while the police forces and FBI
around them seek brute force to end the siege. A certain amount of
techno-babble (and the exploitation of a young Internet as an aspect of
the story) added a new angle to the shiny urban landscape and police
weaponry. The late 1990's were a breakthrough for composer Graeme
Revell, and while he was assigned to several A-grade films of
significant budget (such as The Negotiator, The Saint, and
The Siege), the lack of any fantastic box office success amongst
these films pushed his usual assignment list back into B-grade
territory. His score for The Negotiator would be highly
representative of his action music at the time, combining gritty
orchestral recordings with powerful electronic rhythms and occasional
synthetic or real voices. Some collectors have commented that The
Negotiator sounds like a complicated combination of techniques from
Hans Zimmer and Craig Armstrong's styles, as well as the normal palette
of synthetic sampling that roots the score firmly as one of his own.
That diversity of sound would cause The Negotiator to be a little
more interesting in some regards than his other action scores of the
time, though it is by no means a flawless effort. Where the music for
The Negotiator suffers is in style points, for the best parts of
the score (both in film and on album) are, not surprisingly, those that
closely resemble the work of Zimmer and Armstrong. Even at the very
least, however, Revell's writing for The Negotiator is basically
sufficient, and it often holds an affection from his fans.
As usual for a Revell action score, electronic rhythms of a hip nature form the personality of the score. He does establish a title theme that repeats throughout the score, but its performances are usually too protracted and obscured by the dense combination of orchestra and electronics to easily appreciate. The two weaker sides of the score are the suspense, which is often approached with a very slight synthetic heartbeat sound, and the frantic action cues, which venture dangerously close to the hysterical electronic realms of Trevor Rabin's writing of the time. The film does have a handful of scenes during which the music is mixed at forefront, and in these moments, Revell succeeds. One moment is the cue "Take the Shot," during which a sniper is unable to kill the offending negotiator and Revell provides a crescendo of deep male chorus over simple, rising chord progressions, all of which is very closely linked to Zimmer's Crimson Tide. Another critical moment involves a higher choral tone in "Want My Blood?," a pivotal moment during which the negotiator encourages the dozens of snipers to kill him in front of the entire city. The choral crescendo returns to the deep somber regions for the seemingly defeated "Chris Sabian Replaced" cue, which ends with some eerie, almost exotic vocal effects. Of particular note is "End Game," a resounding cue of slow, ascending choral notes as the true criminals are exposed at the end of the film. Finally, the opening and end credits offer a more coordinated, cool, and harmonic rhythm under rising string performances. The problem with most of these highlight cues is that they either don't appear on the commercial album or they weren't even composed by Graeme Revell in the first place. Therein lies the problem with the music from The Negotiator on album. Despite there being only fifteen to twenty minutes of truly engaging music for the dramatic scenes in the film, the album does a great injustice to that music. As is typical with Revell's music, the composer's fans eventually got hold of the entire recording sessions for The Negotiator and they've been circulating around the secondary trading market for a number of years. In the most interesting point of irony involving this three CDs worth of leaked material, the opening credits music often remains unavailable with the rest of the score on the resulting bootlegs. The short answer for that would be because Craig Armstrong actually wrote the piece (titled "Rise") a year earlier for his solo album and it was inserted into The Negotiator long after the fact. It's readily available on both that solo album and on Armstrong's "Filmworks" release in early 2006. The far more intriguing part of Armstrong's influence on The Negotiator exists in the "End Titles" supposedly written by Revell. Anybody familiar with Armstrong's work will clearly recognize the opening one minute of this cue as his work --not Revell's-- and it makes solid references in style to both The Bone Collector and the end titles of Moulin Rouge. Perhaps Revell incorporated this sound to address the use of Armstrong's music in the opening titles, but perhaps it's completely original Armstrong music during its short run (to 1:05 on the commercial album); the answer to that curious track remains a mystery. Either way, it's definitely mixed back into trademark Revell music after the first minute. The bootlegs do provide the "Want My Blood?" cue mentioned above, as well as the choral film version of "End Game." For whatever reason, the commercial album includes an alternate mixing of the cue without the choir, and not only is this a shame in the climactic moment of realization during the cue, but the lack of chorus under the acoustic guitar work when the negotiator is reunited with his wife is also a disappointment on the commercial album. More than most other recording session bootlegs, the leaked music from The Negotiator includes up to four alternate recordings or mixings of several cues, totaling 76 tracks in sum. Most of these are simple adjustments of the underlying electronic rhythms to obviously test how the varying power levels of the bass region affected the cue in the film. The sound quality of the sessions' bootleg is usually equal to that of the commercial album, with a few minor cues mixed at too low a level to really appreciate on the bootleg. Overall, the music heard in The Negotiator ranges from effective to highly enjoyable. Unfortunately, there is no simple answer on album. The choral mix of the finale will be worth the bootleg for some, and Armstrong's opening titles will merit his compilations for others. The commercial album for The Negotiator is the definite loser. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
Commercial Album:
Total Time: 41:48
3-CD Bootleg: Total Time: 183:46
NOTES & QUOTES:
None of the inserts include extra information about the score or film.
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