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Rules of Engagement
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Composed, Performed, and Produced by:
Performed by:
The London Metropolitan Orchestra
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LABEL & RELEASE DATE
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ALBUM AVAILABILITY
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Regular U.S. release.
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AWARDS
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None.
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ALSO SEE
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Buy it... only if you appreciated the brief militaristic ensemble
performances as heard in the film, or if you've always enjoyed Mark
Isham's 1983 album "Vapor Drawings."
Avoid it... if you expect any of the elements of this rather dull
score to stand alongside the better music that Isham has provided the
genre elsewhere.
BUY IT
 | | Isham |
Rules of Engagement: (Mark Isham) The career of
director William Friedkin has, despite its great successes, been
littered with forgettable, substandard entries. His 2000 film Rules
of Engagement is no longer remembered as one of his projects, but
rather the controversial adaptation of a story written by the then
former Secretary of the Navy, Jim Webb, who would eventually achieve
national fame through his unlikely win of a Senate seat from Virginia.
He was so unhappy with Stephen Gaghan's screenplay and Friedkin's
interpretation of his idea that he threatened to have his name removed
from the project. Ultimately, the offensive material to Webb was
removed, but at a cost of continuity in the film. Despite having talent
all the way up and down the cast and crew, a confusing screenplay with
numerous fallacies of logic doomed Rules of Engagement, not to
mention the shifts between courtroom theatrics and extreme gore. The
storyline follows the predictable path of an American Colonel prosecuted
for murder when he orders lethal force to be used against Yemenese
civilians who may or may not have posed a threat to the American
ambassador there. Friedkin knew from the start exactly what kind of
music he wanted to hear in Rules of Engagement. As a matter of
fact, he had one specific piece of music in mind. He had been a fan of
Mark Isham's composition "On the Threshold of Liberty" from his 1983
solo album "Vapor Drawings," and he used this piece as the temp track
throughout this film (after yearning for years to find a suitable place
for it in one of his projects). He was very pleased when Isham accepted
the offer to actually score the entire film, adapting the previous work
into the fresh soundtrack without attempting to alter its character or
theme too dramatically. Isham's diverse career had never received much
respect for its military components until the composer proved with the
"Army Strong" commercial music of the late 2000's that he could rival
the best at patriotic, orchestral majesty. To a minor extent, Rules
of Engagement is a preview of that sound, but its execution, as well
as the adaptation of the previous theme, is so restricted in scope and
emotion that you end up with a rather mundane listening
experience.
The original recording of "On the Threshold of Liberty"
featured electronics, deliberate rhythms, and Isham's trademark trumpet
solos. He continues all of them here. The half of the score dominated by
ambient sound design, with eerie metallic thumps and groans, is largely
unremarkable. A few such cues are actually quite difficult to tolerate.
The rhythms and trumpet theme are expanded upon quite elegantly in the
opening three cues on album and "Semper Fidelis (Always Faithful)." One
of the score's downsides is the brevity of Isham's own performances; his
trumpet work is quite compelling and will leave you wishing there was
more of it in this score. The slight electronic pulsation effect of the
original "On the Threshold of Liberty" recording is translated into
muscular percussion and brass in the opening three cues, and the roaring
attitude of "Gulf of Aden (USS Wake Island)" will indeed remind you of
the "Army Strong" commercial music. The early cues establish a forceful
atmosphere of ball-busting patriotism that is completely lost in the
remainder of the score, for Isham treats the courtroom and other scenes
with such bland, ambient synthetics that the initial five minutes of
exuberant character is a faint memory. Fans of "On the Threshold of
Liberty," which is provided at the end of this soundtrack for reference,
will hear similarities, some intriguingly subtle, between the classic
work and this newer score. But the design of the music has changed so
much that the audience for the adaptation will likely emerge from the
regular orchestral film score collecting crowd rather than early Isham
loyalists. The most peculiar aspect of Rules of Engagement is the
simple, plain fact that "On the Threshold of Liberty" just isn't worth
the stock that Friedkin puts in it. There have been scores fashioned
after classic works before, but rarely one as frightfully boring as this
one. That's not as much a comment about Isham's talent as it is about
Friedkin's individual taste in music. The performances of the adaptation
by the London Metropolitan Orchestra are unglamorous, but functional.
The album from Milan includes two freshly recorded cues absent from the
film; unfortunately, one of these ("Gulf of Aden (USS Wake Island)") is
the highlight of the score. The other, "Breach of Peace," is easily the
worst cue overall and its omission is understandable. On the whole,
there are highlights worth investigating here, but the majority of music
is extremely dull.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Mark Isham reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.84
(in 26 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 2.88
(in 9,975 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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Total Time: 41:57
• 1. No Victories No Defeats (1:59)
• 2. Gulf of Aden (USS Wake Island)* (1:56)
• 3. The Evac (1:11)
• 4. Back to the World (1:50)
• 5. Heads or Tails (3:59)
• 6. Sana'a (1:56)
• 7. Investigation (2:06)
• 8. Katzi (3:04)
• 9. A Hail Mary (2:41)
• 10. Breach of Peace* (2:24)
• 11. Mrs. Mourain (0:37)
• 12. Rules of Engagement (On the Threshold of Liberty)** (6:12)
• 13. Semper Fidelis (Always Faithful) (4:11)
• 14. On the Threshold of Liberty*/** (7:27)
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* not contained in film
** contains previously written material
The insert contains the following note about the music by director William Friedkin:
"Sometime in the mid 1980's, I heard an album called "Vapor Drawings" by Mark
Isham. One track in particular stayed with me all these years and I've gone back
to listen to it repeatedly. The track is called "On the Threshold of Liberty,"
and I've wanted to use it in a film since I heard it, but never really had
anything that I thought "deserved" this sort of patriotic, wistful, ironic and
beautiful melody reminiscent of the music of Aaron Copland. Mark Isham composed
and arranged this piece as well as having played the trumpet solo, and over the
years I've come to admire his work as a soloist as much as his compositions.
We had never met until about a year ago at a small dinner party in the Rocky
Mountains. I told Mark how much I loved "On the Threshold of Liberty" and asked
him on the spot to write a score for Rules of Engagement.
When Mark saw the film, he agreed and proceeded to take on the unusual
assignment of revisiting and rearranging a piece of music he had originally
composed some fifteen years ago. Since I was using this track to temp dub the
film, Mark knew it was safer to try and work with it than convince me to replace
it because directors notoriously fall in love with their temps (i.e., Strauss'
"Thus Spoke Zarathustra" in Kubrick's 2001) and can't adjust to anything that's
meant to replace it.
None of this should take away from the fact that Mark has enhanced this theme
with a lush and pulse-pounding score that underlines the mood of the film."
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