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| Poledouris |
Flight of the Intruder: (Basil Poledouris) Director
John Milius' 1991 translation of the popular Stephen Coonts novel came
under much criticism at the time of
Flight of the Intruder's
release. Viewers who had appreciated the novel sharply criticized the
adaptation, claiming that much of the intrigue involving the
intelligent, politically complex portion of the plot was replaced with
black and white wartime situations that make for good, dumbed-down
American cinema. For the story of A-6 fighter pilots during Vietnam of
the early 1970's, the characters, while maintaining flight names such as
Cowboy, Razor, Rabbit, or Tiger, didn't closely resemble their
counterparts from the book as well, further irritating Coonts' readers.
Still, adaptations of techno-thriller war novels to the big screen were
a hot idea in the early 1990's, with
The Hunt for Red October
opening the box office floodgates to potential mega-profit imitations.
Unfortunately, debilitating post-production difficulties with
Flight
of the Intruder contributed to a lack of momentum for the project
that ultimately yielded a dismal public response and essentially
concluded Milius' directorial career. Composer Basil Poledouris had by
chance been the composer of the popular score for
Hunt for Red
October, and his friendship and working partnership with Milius
would make him an immediate choice to score
Flight of the
Intruder the next year. By 1991, Milius and Poledouris already
enjoyed half a dozen collaborations, many of them existing in the war or
action genres and their most successful ventures being the 1980's hits
Conan the Barbarian and
Red Dawn. Poledouris felt so
strongly about his loyalty to Milius that he backed out of his
assignment to Kevin Costner's
Dances With Wolves because the
post-production parts of
Flight of the Intruder relating to the
score would overlap the Costner production by two weeks. In an
intriguing and frustrating development, however,
Flight of the
Intruder was delayed by half a year, opening up the entire time in
which John Barry scored
Dances With Wolves. It has been
speculated endlessly that Poledouris, in the process of leaving the
award-caliber film for Milius' ridiculous venture, cost himself his best
shot at an Academy Award nomination and win. The criticism of
Flight
of the Intruder would catch up to Poledouris' score as well, for
several critics claimed upon release that the music is one of the
reasons why the film failed to maintain the novel's intelligence and
degenerated into the realm of mindless action. Indeed, it is a very
simple, straight forward piece of music.
The composer's contribution to
Flight of the
Intruder is patriotic where appropriate, pulsating with snare
rhythms during action sequences, and subdued with ambiguity in places in
between. As before, Poledouris employed a moderately sized orchestra for
the project and then mixed in his own array of modern sound effects to
satisfy the military genre and nautical locale. The main theme,
developing its heroism progressively until announcing departure and
rescue scenes with bravado, is one of Poledouris' most transparent
career ideas; it was obviously aimed at the same narrow audience as the
film in its whole. The theme is robust and overflowing with patriotic
testosterone, but it suffers from the same kind of brutish attitude that
left former pilots wondering why so many of the flying scenes in the
film were unrealistic. Its tone on album is distractingly upbeat as a
result. There is basic suspense in the score, a descending six-note
phrase generic and utilized too often (a good alternate in "Iron Hand
Mission" and "Camparelli Crashes" is comparatively shunned). Slight,
exotic woodwind effects for the Vietnamese element are likewise rather
tepid. One snare-led preparation motif is an exact replica of the one
used for the Americans in
The Hunt for Red October. As such,
Flight of the Intruder does seem like an extension or sequel
score in parts. The electronics this time, however, are not as well
handled, with some of the chosen rhythmic effects reverberating with a
bit too much of an underwater echo mixture. The tingling, steady bass
electronics that Poledouris relied upon in his other sea-faring scores
are largely absent in
Flight of the Intruder as well, and they
are missed. For the flying sequences themselves, Poledouris abandons the
graceful kind of writing that he produced for
Flyers and instead
continues the tone of testosterone-driven force in simple fashion. When
denoting tragedy, as in the opening "Morg's Death," the presence is too
slight, lacking a poignant dramatic touch in the process of attempting
disillusionment. Thus, the emotional depth of the score is minimal, and
the work only serves as a good listening experience if you desire your
stock military action without much genuinely contemplative thought.
Surprisingly, the score for
Flight of the Intruder was never
released commercially in 1991, despite Poledouris' considerable
popularity during that era. A widely circulated bootleg with several
different covers existed since the mid-1990's, however, every variant
offering the same 45 minutes of Poledouris material in very good sound
quality. In 2013, Intrada Records finally provided official treatment to
the work in limited album form, adding a few minutes of bonus material
and cleaning up the presentation. Overall, though, it's a very average
war score that requires you to turn off your brain.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Basil Poledouris reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.54
(in 35 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.3
(in 36,800 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The inserts of the bootlegs are haphazardly designed, with no extra
information about the score or film. That of the 2013 Intrada album includes
detailed information about both.
