Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,776
Written 3/26/12
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Buy it... if you never lose patience with ambient, percussive
thriller scores that toil endlessly in the bass region until a marginal
dose of redemptive, melodic expression in the closing moments instills a
sense of heightened, gloomy finality.
Avoid it... if you expect to hear Ramin Djawadi finally define his
career sound, because this effort is a continuation of his habit of
providing safely predictable and extremely derivative music to earn his
paychecks.
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| Djawadi |
Safe House: (Ramin Djawadi) Corruption within
America's CIA isn't exactly a novel concept, but the fiscally successful
2012 film Safe House attempts to milk the idea for whatever
excitement still remains in its possibilities. Denzel Washington and
Ryan Reynolds star as CIA agents in differing stages of going rogue,
harboring sensitive information about unflattering activities by their
current and former superiors and thus coming under attack from
mercenaries and agents focused on containing those revelations. While
chasing through South Africa, these agents are brutalized and even
worse, though it doesn't take much forethought to predict that some
noble soul will post the offensive information online by movie's end.
Swedish director Daniel Espinosa marks his first American feature with
Safe House, and while he generated heralded performances from the
two leads, his work was otherwise criticized in mixed reviews for its
derivative chase sequences and even more derivative script. It should
come as no surprise to film score collectors that Safe House was
treated to music of direct lineage from the methodology of John Powell
and Hans Zimmer's Remote Control production house. Any one of Zimmer's
former ghostwriters could handle this project with an appropriately
modern, technologically edgy, and rhythmically propulsive score, and the
clone taking the job this time was Ramin Djawadi. In his feature film
work, Djawadi had yet to really distinguish himself from his peers, and
Safe House continues that trend. While any part of this music
could have been written by Atli Örvarsson, Marc Streitenfeld, Steve
Jablonsky, or a host of others, Djawadi does at least take the
opportunity to extend his ambient approach out in the direction of Cliff
Martinez and other artists concerned more with the tone of their bleak
environment than simply emulating the slapping, looped mannerisms of
Powell. There are moments in Safe House when Djawadi does take
the Powell route, especially in the most exciting chase sequences. An
emphasis on a varied percussion section is especially indicative of this
influence, though its applications aren't quite as creative until the
ball-busting force of the final cue. But, in the end, Djawadi's work is
short on empathy and originality, reducing it to a status as a
functional but, like the film, equally derivative piece of mindless
entertainment.
While an orchestral ensemble was contracted for
Safe
House, Djawadi fills his soundscape most frequently with his
percussive array and ambient synthetic tones. During the lengthy
sequences of droning on key, the orchestra occasionally provides some
minimal amount of beefiness, but its presence doesn't become truly
pronounced until the score's end. Most of the score could be completely
synthesized without much difference in effectiveness, keyboarded
electronic haziness in the bass region particularly reminiscent of
Martinez's style. The amount of pulsation on key in
Safe House is
disappointing though emblematic of current Remote Control techniques of
hammering home the gravity of any event on screen. The action sequences
are extremely tired, exercising looped ideas and percussive sounds that
strive for nothing new. These parts of the score also neglect to really
address any of the fear associated with being in a foreign environment
surrounded by hostile interests. The character-building sequences
between the two leads, as well as in the tension shared by Reynolds and
his romantic interest, is not convincingly handled by Djawadi in a way
that can bring any sense of warmth to these performances. A slightly
noble sense of justice does bleed through as the score reaches its more
melodramatic cues towards the end, but even here the tone of the work is
deeply rooted in the bass and suggests no empathy. The increasing
tonality of the score as it nears that conclusion is the most important
observation to be made. At 69 minutes in length, the score-only album
for
Safe House is extremely tedious and redundant, though
listeners patient enough to tolerate the first forty minutes will be
rewarded by far more interesting ideas in the final five or six cues.
There is thematic material developed over the course of
Safe
House, though while the main theme is only suggested in cloudy
shades in the opening "Safe House" cue, it begins to really establish
itself in these latter stages. By "Truth" and "I'll Take it From Here,"
the melodic identities provide a form of redemption, especially in
"Truth," which belatedly exudes a dose of broader orchestral depth in
the mid-range octaves. Even here, though, Djawadi adheres to convention,
assign a two-note motif slurring down to key in the major mode over the
final 40 seconds, a technique common to resolving thrillers (Jerry
Goldsmith's
The Vanishing immediately comes to mind). Overall,
Safe House is a sufficiently competent but redundant score that
will require extreme patience with its exceedingly long album
presentation.
@Amazon.com: CD or
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- Music as Written for the Film: ***
- Music as Heard on Album: **
- Overall: ***
