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| Horner |
Another 48 Hrs.: (James Horner) Despite extremely
low studio expectations, the 1982 action comedy
48 Hrs. became
such a monumental hit that it launched the "buddy cop" subgenre of
movies and made an instant star of newcomer Eddie Murphy. While veteran
action director Walter Hill and lead actor Nick Nolte had little
interest in making a sequel, Murphy eventually changed their minds. In
1990's
Another 48 Hrs., the roles are switched, Murphy's
character the straight and legitimate law enforcement officer and Nolte
the corrupt one given two days to take down a drug lord or lose his job.
The hard-edged humor of the concept remains from the previous film, but
the increased budget allowed for longer and more elaborate action
sequences. While the movie wasn't as well received as the prior entry,
it did ultimately gross more for the studio against stiff competition.
The soundtrack for
48 Hrs. utilized only a marginal amount of
original score, leaning heavily on source-like songs by The BusBoys,
including the hit "(The Boys Are) Back in Town" that became famous. The
songs in the sequel are less heralded, three performed by Curio of
little appeal and a cover of the aforementioned "(The Boys Are) Back in
Town" unnecessary. The director was still keen on minimizing the amount
of music heard in the picture, and a fair amount of James Horner's score
for
Another 48 Hrs. was ultimately dialed out. The composer's
work for the prior film had significantly impressed Hill, however, and
the two enjoyed a robust collaboration throughout the rest of the
1980's. With the higher budget and consequently more complicated action
scenes, Horner responded with a better-rounded composition for the
sequel. The general demeanor remained very similar, however, all of the
instrumental and stylistic techniques from
48 Hrs. carrying over.
The most interesting aspect of the second score is the maturation of
Horner's sound in terms of recording sophistication. Each element in the
mix sound better, even if those performances aren't necessarily
attractive.
The raw edge of the score for
48 Hrs. is lost
with the improvements in recording quality, though the slightly wetter
ambience and better distancing of instruments gives this work an
advantage on album. Horner's instrumental palette for these 1980's
thrillers never made much sense, especially the involvement of steel
drums that sounded particularly out of place given their popular ethnic
connotations. They return, along with harmonica, saxophone, drum kit,
electric guitars, and a marginal orchestra that rarely uses its strings
at the forefront and drops high brass in favor of trombones and tubas
that typically perform lines in unison. Percussion and synthetics are
better realized in
Another 48 Hrs., especially in the lighter
metallic tones. The one major addition for the sequel is the Japanese
shakuhachi flute that the composer had become enamored with a few years
earlier. By this time in Horner's career, the shakuhachi was applied all
over his music, even when it made absolutely no intellectual sense. In
this film, he applies it to the outlaw biker gang involved in the story,
which doesn't work even when you try to squeeze in some Japanese mythos
into the equation. The instrument's performances are never meant to
augment tonal melodic aspects, layered mostly as a stinger device. Many
of these shakuhachi stingers are totally insufferable, joined by
dissonant thrashing or simply wailing on their own. Some Horner
collectors will find the instrument comforting, but it cannot compete
with the effectiveness of the sax performances. These contributions
explore the main theme of the two films and do so here with far more
elegance in the mix than had existed in
48 Hrs. Horner's themes
for this concept have never been memorable, a combination of a
seven-note motif and meandering sax lines representing the primary
theme. Even with the additional performances here, these main themes are
simply too elusive to be effective, forcing their mere tone to suffice.
A descending figure to key (mostly on steel drums) was typical of the
composer at the time, and its use is excessive in this score. Blurting
lines from the low brass sometimes accompany this descending phrase but
stand on their own at others.
A new villain identity for
Another 48 Hrs.
exists in a full octave span on guitar and is sometimes more acoustic
while elsewhere droning like a sound effect. Its use at 0:25 into "King
Mei Shootout" (and again later in the cue) sounds like an electric
guitar attempting to emulate the sound of a giant millhouse saw. It's
not exactly pleasant listening. The melodic passages of the score are
much improved when they are allowed to develop, from "Main Title From
Another 48 Hrs." to "Diner Ambush" and "Backwards Drive." The mass of
sparse thriller music is without much merit, however, and the action
portions are generic extensions of similarly dated sounds from the first
score. The narrative of the score for
Another 48 Hrs. is
particularly poor, and not just because Hill opted to rearrange or drop
major portions of the work. The last third completely loses all
momentum, "Birdcage Battle" among Horner's weakest major action cues and
the final "Killing Kehoe" cue offering no sense of catharsis or
resolution whatsoever. Ultimately, the selling point of
Another 48
Hrs. for Horner collectors is that it's a more sophisticated and
better sounding version of the first score. But that inspiration was
pretty awful to begin with, so be careful what you wish for. On album,
the Scotti Bros. label provided a sufficient commercial album in 1990
with just under 20 minutes of Horner's score in four tracks sandwiched
in between songs from the film. Not all of this material matched what
was heard in the movie, however, as the album was set prior to Horner's
final alterations. It took until 2022 before Horner's full score was
released by Intrada Records as a limited product, taking superior
masters and arranging the film-oriented presentation that had been
originally intended by the composer. This 47-minute experience will test
your patience with its redundancies, but for concept enthusiasts,
Intrada appends four alternate takes. Unlike the label's albums for
48 Hrs., the songs are not included with the sequel score on this
one. Still, there can be no quibbles with Intrada's treatment of the
work, even if Horner's recording doesn't offer much attraction to those
without an established affinity for this mode within the composer's
career. Thankfully, those ever-awkward steel drums were on the way out
the door for Horner.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| 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.
|
The insert of the 1990 Scotti Bros. album includes no extra information about
the score or film. That of the 2022 Intrada product contains details about both.
