Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #2,231
Written 3/20/22
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Buy it... only if you are an avid enthusiast of the rock elements or
stale symphonic portions for the Steven Seagal character and the
battleship, respectively, in the context of the movie.
Avoid it... if you expect Gary Chang to take the opportunity to write
a well-integrated score with smart narrative development, his music
instead failing to adhere to fundamental methods of generating
excitement in its generic posture.
Under Siege: (Gary Chang) To the extent that any
Steven Seagal film could be considered a widespread success, 1992's
Under Siege was about as close as the martial arts expert turned
filmmaker ever got to genuine acclaim. The Andrew Davis movie actually
managed to snag a couple of Oscar nominations on its journey to peer
respect and impressive box office returns. Much of that winning formula
for Under Siege is owed to Tommy Lee Jones as the leader of the
former CIA operative group who is betrayed by his country and seeks
revenge by stealing the battleship U.S.S. Missouri on its final
deployment. Jones' screen time exceeds that of Seagal, allowing the
former to chew mercilessly on the marginally humorous script as he
executs his plan to commandeer the ship, steal its missiles, and launch
nuclear weapons at Hawaii. Seagal, meanwhile, is the ship's lead cook
and, of course, professional killer. As far as Seagal film formulas
went, Under Siege remains the best of a career that eventually
faded due to endless allegations of sexual assault and, more
intriguingly, absolute fealty to Vladimir Putin's Russia, which rewarded
his loyalty with citizenship. Despite a few notable entries by composer
Basil Poledouris, Seagal's films rarely enjoyed appreciable film music,
and the soundtrack for Under Siege balances a minimal amount of
song and original score. It's the kind of soundtrack that succeeds only
to the extent that the U.S.S. Missouri is on screen, which means that
the music only excels when the ship is shown sailing at the beginning
and the end. For this score, Davis turned to budget composer Gary Chang,
who had written music for a variety of B-rate action thrillers since the
mid-1980's and had an affinity for synthetic sound design. While Chang's
career was ascending at the time, his big screen credits did not
continue to expand after Under Siege, which remains among his
best-known scores. Perhaps some of that career stagnation is owed to the
fact that this score stands as a monumentally wasted opportunity for
Chang, the finished product only minimally impactful and failing to
generate genuine suspense, coolness, or any narrative whatsoever. Those
who feast on Seagal films will likely find nothing wrong with it, but
from a compositional standpoint, Under Siege is a frustratingly
inept score that enjoys some smart stylistic decisions but simply
doesn't execute them in effective ways. Chang's approach relies upon an
uncomfortable blend of symphonic and electronic elements, and it's
perhaps thankful that the music is often dialed down in the movie
itself.
Chang's orchestra in
Under Siege is provided in
only basic layering in the less than half of the score to which it
contributes. Synthetic effects are fairly common as pace-setters or
drones that would befit a cheap television courtroom show. The rock
elements are where the score shows some personality, but their promise
is diluted by their poor integration into the mix and a total
mishandling of them in a few scenes. The guitars and drum kit bring a
sense of coolness that is welcome, but they struggle to perform in a way
that also exudes the austere respect that the U.S. Navy and this ship in
particular should be afforded, especially given that these elements
represent the Navy fighting back against the terrorist gang rather than
provide some outrage from the villains' perspective. Three themes occupy
nearly the whole work, starting with an extremely long-lined and elusive
main theme. It is precisely what this movie did not need; rather, an
idea that could be condensed into brief stinger motifs would have been
advised. It often uses three-note phrases in very awkward harmonics that
sound like a bizarre emulation of Leonard Rosenman where no such
complications are merited. The theme debuts at 0:43 into "Main Title" on
brass and strings over rock instrumentation, returning suddenly on brass
at 3:14 after minimal rhythmic bubbling. A brass-only performance
occupies "Fanfare" while "Epilogue" offers an excess of notes in
unsatisfying chords without solidifying the theme. Otherwise, this idea
disappears in the middle of the score. The villains receive a conspiracy
theme that is clearly an emulation of John Williams'
JFK in the
pluckiness of "The Takeover," "Reveal Sub," and "Sub Splits." It is
reprised with the same intensity and no further development in "The
Broadway Shootout." Seagal's Ryback character receives the cooler
rhythmic material, starting with softer synthetics (including, perhaps,
fake pan pipes) and percussive tones in "Casey Gets in Touch." The
electric guitar joins with cool style in "Casey saves Jordan" and turns
full rock in "They Sink the Sub." The latter cue is terrible in the film
as turret gun is loaded and fires on the submarine; the cue suffers
awful pacing and no climax. This material shifts back to understatement
in "Casey Rescues the Laundry," the atmospherics interrupted by one
tense rhythmic crescendo in "Sitting Ducks," and it dissolves to primal
drums in "Casey meets Strannix." Another particularly poor cue is the
anonymous suspense with orchestra and synths in "Casey Saves Hawaii,"
essentially one big crescendo and no main theme anywhere. On the whole,
the
Under Siege score is underdeveloped, cheaply rendered, and
sounds muffled throughout, its 29-minute album a relative rarity and not
worth angering the cook to obtain.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
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