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There was no lack of direction for Horner from Zaillian, with whom he had collaborated for Searching for Bobby Fischer. Zaillian explains that he was requesting a score that would not sound like the usual Horner affair: a darkly textured and troubled, but still faintly noble melodic score with "Shakespearian" qualities. Patrick Doyle immediately comes to mind as possibly a more intriguing candidate for the task, but upon hearing the final product, you can definitely tell that Horner did his best to follow Zaillian's instructions. One aspect of the job that Horner couldn't follow as easily was Zaillian's endless post-production nightmare, a schedule-busting frustration that caused the recording sessions to be delayed a calendar year. The fun continued through the summer of 2006, with Horner being asked to re-score and rerecord a pivotal scene during the perpetual editing process. As he walks away from the project, the resulting score is impressive in its size and scope, but as it has been mentioned by others in the mainstream, the score doesn't always resonate when matched with the complex layers in the story. It's ambitious and occasionally over-the-top, providing for a dramatic listening experience but also challenging your nerves with its overbearing attitudes. Horner has never shunned an opportunity to unleash a dramatic Americana theme, and they exist once again in All the King's Men. The overarching sound of the score may be a departure from Horner's operational norms, but on the backend, everything is predictable. The title theme is a stark, but appropriately noble theme for the region, a heavyweight when performed by the full ensemble. A theme of innocence for piano and light strings is offered for the childhood flashbacks in the film. Two short motifs alternate for the twisted persona of the hardened Willie Stark, one representing his personal turmoil and one more in tune with the corrupt system as a whole. The abbreviated structure of these motifs could be affectionately defined by Horner collectors as a subscription to the "four-note motif of evil," though the actual progression of those notes is different from the famed Willow motif. Again, it's among many aspects that make All the King's Men a typical Horner score if you look at it from a basic, structural point of view.

Where Horner succeeds with All the King's Men is in the integration of the three to four major themes together. Tumultuous cues like "The Rise to Power" and "Time Brings All Things to Light..." adapt the noble title theme and tender childhood theme into lengthy crescendos that inevitably serve up the themes of power and corruption in frightfully complex, but not readily listenable performances of significant bombast. One rhythmic technique utilized by Horner in the score involves the repetitive crescendo of the percussion section, as heard at the outset of the film with drums and chimes. To address the director's request for a darker angle on the themes, much of the fully symphonic material is constructed with disjointed or slightly atonal chords similar to the work of Thomas Newman. A few of the more rural settings are accompanied by plucking string rhythms from a like-minded Newman origin. Expect many of the larger thematic performances to have that slight Newmaneque twist of disharmony, though Horner's lighter renditions of the themes for the three pianos employed do offer some respite from the score's own weighty tones. The most intriguing single cue in All the King's Men is, unsurprisingly, the one rejected by Zaillian. Much of "Give Me the Hammer and I'll Nail 'em Up!" was replaced in the film, and probably for good reason. If the remainder of the score was considered by the mainstream to be too invasive in the film, then this cue would definitely have rocked their boats. It is the one cue for which Horner slips hopelessly back into his comfort zone, pulling several references from previous scores and adapting them into the new material in far more harmonious and positive methods than the rest of the score entails. The cheerleading scene may have been able to use this sound to some degree, and fortunately for listeners, this original version had already been mastered for the album before the re-recording was finished. Horner collectors will hear significant influences from both Apollo 13 and Braveheart, as well as some bass string movements similar to The Rocketeer, and ironically, this merging of Horner's more usual style and the themes from All the King's Men makes it the most enjoyable cue on album. Overall, however, the sheer weight of the score, with its disjointed and slightly atonal chord structures, keeps it from being readily accessible. Unfortunately, the score is more distracting than impressive for the story itself, leaving it as an adequate, but disappointing compliance to the director's suspect requests.  ***   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.15 (in 108 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.23 (in 203,515 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.

Total Time: 56:14