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Review of The Taking of Pelham 123 (Harry Gregson-Williams)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... only if the most generic techno-thriller scores of the
2000's still manage to tickle your fancy, because this entry is dull
even by the standards of Harry Gregson-Williams' normally predictable
genre contributions.
Avoid it... if tired sample manipulations, basic string lines, electric guitar explosions, and token thematic development on piano at the end literally give you too much Deja Vu to handle.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
The Taking of Pelham 123: (Harry Gregson-Williams)
Chalk up another remake in the "Was It Necessary?" column, an adequate
but ultimately useless modernization of a previously well-executed
concept. The 1974 cinematic adaptation of the same novel has remained
well respected through the years, a lingering relic of 1970's saturation
in its cultural aspects but a solid thriller about the hijacking of a
New York subway car. When director/producer Tony Scott decided to
resurrect the concept in the late 2000's, several elements in the plot
needed to be updated to account for changes in technology, terrorism
readiness, and fiscal considerations. Denzel Washington and John
Travolta face off in the 2009 version of The Taking of Pelham
123, the basic plot elements staying the same but the revisions not
interesting enough to really breathe new life into the framework. For
fans of the Scott and Washington collaborations through the years, this
entry brings relatively little new to the table, the acting performances
predictable, the direction lacking style, and the original score
predictably mundane. With soft box office results and eventual worldwide
take likely considered disappointing by the studio, The Taking of
Pelham 123 has quickly become a footnote for most of those involved.
That statement applies especially to composer Harry Gregson-Williams,
who continued his partnership with Scott for the occasion. Starting with
Enemy of the State in 1998, Gregson-Williams has produced
sufficient but, with a few exceptions, never really notable music for
Scott's films, using each assignment to continue development of (or
simply repeat) ideas established in the thrillers of the late 1990's by
him and other current and former associates of the Hans Zimmer machine.
Scott, like Jerry Bruckheimer, certainly seems to have a certain sound
that he wants to hear in these pictures, and Gregson-Williams spent most
of the 2000's yielding that result while on auto-pilot in those
assignments. While there were moments of flair and deeper resonance (not
to mention ensemble highlights) in Spy Game, the tone of
everything from Man on Fire to Deja Vu and The Taking
of Pelham 123 has been remarkably uninteresting in its continuation
of essentially the same generic thriller sound. Some of those tendencies
informed 2010's Unstoppable as well, but at least that score had
a better developed set of character themes to enhance the interaction
between the leads in that story. By comparison, the previous year's
The Taking of Pelham 123 is a boring and tedious exercise in
disappointingly basic propulsion.
This review can't continue, of course, without making at least some mention of David Shire's score for the 1974 original. His approach to The Taking of Pelham One Two Three was one that pushed the boundaries of contemporary funk and jazz, taking sounds familiar to blaxploitation films and infusing them with intelligent 12-tone compositional techniques and a fair amount of orchestral dissonance to create a memorable score. While unlistenable to many in the 2000's, Shire's music was always a stylish way of tackling the concept, and this level of engagement is absent in Gregson-Williams' merely workmanlike effort for the 2009 version. The lack of style in the remake's score is mostly due to the derivative nature of its tone, the backbone of the score once again a collection of highly manipulated samples forced into rhythmic duty, backed up by an orchestral string section. Piano solos develop late in the score for sensitive resolution, but even these aren't free from ambient dissonant effects. Electric guitars are unleashed for abrasive passages of ultra-cool force at several points in the score. The primary duties for The Taking of Pelham 123 are handled by the programmers, however, whose synthetic effects are dominated by the usual clicking, groaning, and slapping variety. Two exceptions hint at some creative thought, but both are relegated to only minimal frequency; the sound of screeching brakes on the subway cars is used as a rhythmic device at the start of the score, and rattling, chain-like samples are applied as a more ambient technique later on. Otherwise, there exists nothing in this score to impress a learned collector. The rhythms are frantic, the tone harsh, and motific development kept to a minimum. A descending string line heard twice in "Something on the Track" is not adequately utilized thereafter. Hints of a piano theme in "It's Me, Man!" are eventually revisited and extended late in "Manhattan Bridge" and throughout "...You a Yankee's Fan?" (yes, the team's iconic name is misspelled in the cue title). These personable, but still sparse highlights may save the score for listeners in much the same way as they did in Gregson-Williams' The Town the following year, however don't expect any genuine character to come from them. Compared to Shire's admittedly outdated and challenging score from today's perspective, the Gregson-Williams version sadly underachieves, not even providing fans of his thriller style anything particularly interesting to hear outside of the handful of heavy metal-inspired guitar explosions. The primarily download-oriented album of a languishing 45 minutes in length was offered on CD by Amazon.com's "on demand" service, but unfortunately the uncompressed sound quality won't expose any greater intelligence in the music. *
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 45:12
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes a list of performers, but no extra information about the
score or film. As in many of Amazon.com's "CDr on demand" products, the
packaging smells incredibly foul when new.
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