: (Elmer Bernstein/John Powell) When it
comes to insane ensemble cast comedies, few can compete with the zany
and ridiculous 2001 movie
. The final directorial effort
of Jerry Zucker features a solid cast of comedians from around the world
and sets them on a hairbrained chase across the American Southwest in a
race towards promised riches. Six teams of random people in Las Vegas
are challenged by a casino and hotel owner (John Cleese, who loved the
script) to journey to New Mexico as quickly as possible to retrieve two
million dollars from a locker they are all given the key to. Chaos
ensues as they battle each other and are double-crossed by seemingly
everybody during their trek, encountering hostilities not just from each
other but from a variety of random people they meet along the way. Every
situation in the story is absurdly preposterous, and it's satisfying
when the money ends up going to none of the contestants in the end,
costing the owner far more than he anticipated. With the movie taking
inspiration from the wackiness of Zucker's
decades
before, it's perhaps not surprising that critics weren't thrilled by
that early 1980's style of humor in the 2000's. But audiences sucked it
up due to the star power in the cast. The studio didn't know what quite
to make of the project as it was coming together, and it saw throwback
composer Elmer Bernstein as part of the problem. The elder statesman of
the film composing world was Zucker's first choice for the project
because of their early success together. Nearing the end of his career
at the time, Bernstein had preferred to stay away from asinine comedies
in the 1990's after spending so much of the 1980's earning his pay
creating effective parody music. He had shifted his focus to sensitive
dramas in the 1990's with strong results. But teaming again with Zucker
allowed him one last foray into that pompous style of 1980's writing in
the lighter genre, and he showed significant vigor in his approach to
the music. Still, the studio intervened, deeming the music too old
fashioned for the topic, and Bernstein was fired yet again in
his career.
Far less expensive was startup John Powell, who tackled
the humor from a different perspective and with superior results. Either
score would have worked fine in the movie, though, and while Powell had
produced similar music in his career, the affection Bernstein shows in
his effort is difficult to denigrate. If there's one thing you could say
definitively about Bernstein's music for
Rat Race, aside from the
fact that it's not related at all to his 1960 score for a different film
of the same name, it's faithful to the composer's methodology. Every
part of it sounds unashamedly like pieces of Bernstein comedies from
decades before but executed in 21st Century sound quality. You cannot
help but be hopelessly charmed by his jazzy approach to the story,
augmenting his orchestra with electric bass, saxophone, drum kit for
contemporary flair and adding his usual ondes martenot and castanets,
among other accents. The big band brass elements are particularly
pronounced, though some sappy solo string romance is tossed in as well.
The saxophones dominate the personality, as do the brass layers in cues
meant for purely snazzy appeal beyond all typical norms of this era. The
sheer joy expressed in his more voluminous cues, such as the brass and
xylophone highlights of "Downhill," are incredibly boisterous and
infectiously positive. He even coins a fake aria with operatic male
soloist for ultra-romantic drama that's oozing with insincerity. Nothing
can compete with the closing "Finale," however, the final massive
orchestral bonanza of Bernstein's career. This homage to
The
Magnificent Seven is a fantastic Western theme bringing the score's
instrumental pieces together for one smile-inducing moment of bliss.
Despite the wonderful ambience created by Bernstein for the concept,
it's not a thematically tight work. Complicating matters are a number of
orchestral and choral source cues recorded by Bernstein, of which "In
the Hall of the Mountain King" remained in the film after the composer's
firing. Not all of Bernstein's composition was recorded at the time of
that removal, yielding a short album experience. But that collection of
cues amounting to 31 minutes sounds fantastic and includes several album
arrangements that Bernstein was recording along the way, including a
different version of the delightful "Finale."
Interestingly, assisting Bernstein in these efforts was
a student of his, Bear McCreary, who parlayed his experience into a
remarkable career of his own and got an early taste of what it's like to
be rejected from a film. He fondly recalls his work on the project with
Bernstein, as well as the guidance of his mentor that began with his
university coursework. When Powell was brought on board for
Rat
Race, he never had the chance to hear Bernstein's music and
approached the story fresh. He had written music for
Forces of
Nature and
Chicken Run by this point, the pairing showing the
composer's capability across many genre sounds but especially proving
his chops in the comedy element. His score for this movie clocks in at
35 minutes as well, the project ultimately full of song placements that
culminate in an on-screen concert performance by the band Smash Mouth
that dominates the story by the end. His music is just as amusing as
Bernstein's but in an entirely different way. It's clear that Powell was
instructed to take the maddening propulsion from his highlights of
Chicken Run and flesh out that demeanor and pacing for an entire
picture (minus kazoos), and he succeeds quite well at that task. A
slurring slide guitar joins an orchestra and choir for a largely
traditional ensemble score, but there are plenty of accents in his take
as well. Strained strings suggest faux classical sense of importance
while brash brass counterpoint is highly stylish but outrageously
frazzled. A notable tuba solo in "From a Rocket Car to a Nut Bus" pushes
all the right comedy buttons while trumpets enjoy their best moment of
glory in the hyped "Tour Bus Crash." The score is dominated by its main,
waltz-driven theme and associated rhythmic movement in countless frantic
moments. Secondary character themes emerge in small pieces, but the main
theme steals the show. Many of the supplemental ideas use the same waltz
inspirations, though a motif for the disembodied heart in "Wanna See a
Heart" and "I Lost My Heart to a Dog" is a quieter, plucky relief that
stands apart. The main theme's waltz undergoes a wild variety of
personality changes throughout the score, developed immediately on lazy
woodwinds and trombone in "Let's Meet Our Contestants" but realizing its
destiny as pure carnival ruckus throughout "The Chase Begins."
Powell's main theme rips with a Rachel Portman,
The
Road to Wellville-like bassoon lead in "Flights Cancelled" to an
explosion that carries over to the ends of "Roswell, New Mexico" and
"The Cabbie Dumps Owen." Choir and incessant timpani drive the idea in
"Helicopter Dance" while a mandolin rendition in "Pollini Wakes and Owen
Gets Some Clothes" provides Italian flavor for Rowan Atkinson's
character. The slide guitar offers a sly version of the main theme in
"Stealing Some Gas," mambo percussion pushes it in "Chase to the
Balloons" over puffing winds and brass, and choir joins the ensemble for
a rousing climax in "Arrival at Silver City." Only vaguely referenced in
"Grisham Runs Off With the Hooker," this identity is adapted for Latin
laughs in "La Habanera Loca" before acoustic guitar and exotic flute
flirt with same general idea in "Before We Were Russian." The score does
lose some momentum in its second half, with less appealing singular cues
and a ponderous, whimsical closure in "All Alone in the World" and "All
the Little Children." You can't help but love Powell's energy in this
work; he was just as invigorated as Bernstein but expresses it in his
own manic voice. The quality of writing for Powell is exemplary and
previews some of the immensity that listeners would eventually come to
appreciate regularly from the composer, especially with the addition of
the choir. Still, the volume of Powell's work is almost too much, even
at the short running time. Since there isn't enough relief in the middle
of the narrative, it's an exhausting experience overall. In the end,
though, Powell's composition and recording is infinitely more
complicated and polished than Bernstein's, but you cannot help but love
the authenticity and flashier ambient recording quality of Bernstein's
music. The brief Powell score was released commercially at the time of
the film's release and has become a moderate collectible on CD. It took
until 2023 before the Bernstein recording was unearthed by La-La Land
Records for a very limited run, and excessive licensing costs prohibited
that label from combining both scores on one product as fans could have
hoped for. The appeal of each album will depend on your interest in the
composer; Bernstein enthusiasts will love hearing the composer throw his
heart at this score at the end of his career. And those who collect
Powell's works are treated to a surprising early gem of substantial
orchestral force and humor. Both scores are winners for their
generation.
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- Music as Written by Elmer Bernstein for the Film: ****
- Music as Written by John Powell for the Film: ****
- Music as Heard on All Albums: ****
- Overall: ****
| Bias Check: |
For John Powell reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.3
(in 60 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.12
(in 55,810 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
