: (Jón Þór
Birgisson) For the better part of two decades, studios toiled with an
adaptation of Tom Clancy's novel, "Without Remorse." Rotating through a
slew of big-name directors and actors, the property eventually landed at
Paramount with Stefano Sollima at the helm and Michael B. Jordan in the
lead role. Delayed another year by the pandemic and eventually relegated
to a streaming release by Amazon in 2021,
is
intended to be the first of two adaptations of Clancy novels along the
same storyline, with "Rainbow Six" to follow. The plotline is true to
its 1990's origins, an espionage thriller going all the way up to the
highest ranks of the American government and suggesting that another war
with Russia is possible as assassinations take place on both countries'
soil. Jordan's lead character loses most of his team members and his
pregnant wife after his Navy SEAL team gets involved in a Syrian hostage
situation that foils a Russian plot. Naturally, the man becomes
aggravated. He seeks revenge, gets used by his own government's
double-crossing cronies, seeks revenge yet again, has a sandwich, seeks
revenge another time, and ultimately produces a fairly significant body
count. In the next film, he'll be seeking revenge. Critics weren't
particularly thrilled with the rather bland story, but audiences made it
a moderate streaming success. If there's one definite generalization
that a person could make about Sollima's films, although they are few in
quantity, it's that he loves unconventional sound design as his original
music. The Italian director has rotated through several European band
leads and novel composers, settling recently on Icelandic ones in
particular. Having collaborated with overrated gloom master Hildur
Guðnadóttir for
, he turned
to Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi, or Jón
Þór Birgisson when not obliging pop culture, for
It's a surprising assignment for Birgisson, who is well
known for providing songs to films, most notably the
How to Train
Your Dragon entries, but had only scored the relatively obscure
feature films
We Bought a Zoo in 2011 and
Aloha in 2015.
That said, he had provided numerous scores for short videos and
television series, so his duties for
Without Remorse aren't
without any reason. Joining him and providing additional music is
regular Marco Beltrami collaborator Brandon Roberts. About this score,
Sollima has stated, "For one whole year, Jónsi has devoted
himself to finding the soul of
Without Remorse. The complexity,
sophistication and elegance of his composition adds incredible depth to
the story, which I recommend experiencing on vinyl." Everything about
that sentence is extremely humorous, for there is nothing complex,
sophisticated, or elegant about Birgisson's music for this film, and if
he spent a year creating this music, then God help him. Likewise, few
people should be shelling out $40 to hear this score on vinyl. Something
about the music for
Without Remorse must have tickled Sollima
just the right way, for most everyone else will hear a poor impression
of Guðnadóttir and a number of composers whose careers are
mired in sound design applications as music. The credits indicate that
an orchestrator and conductor were employed, and there are indeed a few
hints of organic presence in the work, especially near the end. But
otherwise, Birgisson has taken his modular synthesizers and percussion
to the realm of dreary ambient muck, providing music with absolutely
zero potential to define a franchise. The droning, thumping, grinding,
and slashing noises that comprise the score are often rooted
simplistically on key, sometimes pounding away in pointless rhythms and
reverberating through your skull with the wet ambience of its mix. The
standard "long suspenseful crescendo" technique is applied by Birgisson,
as in the insufferable "True Patriot," but otherwise the score is mostly
an exercise in dialing up and down the ambient mood.
There are some marginally pleasant chord shifts in
Without Remorse that suggest the potential for thematic
development, but Birgisson's progressions move so frustratingly slowly
that only a sloth might be able to identify them without artificially
speeding them up. Those chord shifts also root around on key, of course.
They do, to their credit, supply some vaguely tonal moments of
quasi-Vangelis resemblance in the family and lamentation moments of
"Campfire" and the long crescendo of chord shifts in "Arlington," these
tones extending to "Hallway." As vengeance is realized late in the film,
the slight tonality returns, hints of relief heard when Birgisson
resolves on key in "Aftermath." Muted organ and string optimism occupies
"Funeral" before a sudden cut-off without resolution to close out the
score, suggesting more revenge to be sought in the next flick. For
enthusiasts of the new-agey Vangelis inclinations, expect some
Aquaman-like pitch slurring in "Swim." Outside of these moments,
the score for
Without Remorse is a challenging bore. The
highlight of the suspense and action material comes in "SCIF," where
Birgisson takes a page from the abrasive industrial rhythms of Paul
Haslinger while offering some decent tonal shifts on top. If you prefer
masculine pronouncements of a slightly exotic nature, the pulsating low
notes on key in "Rykov" will stir the loins. The nascent thematic chord
shifts struggle to congeal in the action of "Rooftop," yielding instead
to annoyingly accelerating percussion over total dissonance in "Stairs."
Those wanting Remote Control Productions atmosphere may gravitate
towards "Potomac," in which brass shades emerge with a touch of organic
texture. Some of the more recognizable percussion in the score is
obnoxiously and frenetically layered, with emphasis on the volume of
sound rather than any points of punctuation. Overall,
Without
Remorse is a pointless exercise in sound design masquerading as
music. It is none of the things the director says about it, and on album
it will test your patience with its mean-spirited tone and unpolished
redundancy. That product is 73 minutes in length, definitely long enough
to dwell deeply on someone you need revenge against and be miserable
because of it.
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