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Written 3/16/10
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Buy it... if you miss the days when Hans Zimmer infused his scores
with undeniably alluring style and attitude, both of which spanning the
gospel-laced hard rock and redemptive new age keyboarding in Point of
No Return.
Avoid it... if you cannot tolerate the mostly synthetic,
contemporary tones of Zimmer's relatively low-key and affable character
themes that often derived from Rain Man at the time.
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| Zimmer |
Point of No Return: (Hans Zimmer) A remake of Luc
Besson's cult 1990 favorite La Femme Nikita, Warner Brothers'
1993 American adaptation, Point of No Return by John Badham, was
remarkably faithful to its inspiration in terms of plot, look, and feel.
Bridget Fonda replaced Anne Parillaud as the story's famed female
assassin, a young woman addicted to drugs who murders a police officer
during a robbery and is sentenced to death. Her execution is staged,
however, and with a new identity she is secretly trained (albeit without
her full cooperation at the start) by a government agency in the
assassination and espionage business. She is transformed into a woman
capable of refined deception and is successful in several of her
assignments before tripping up on her last one and confronting the
company cleaner (Harvey Keitel, who else?). The bittersweet conclusion
of Point of No Return trades romance for freedom, though the
story's arch could be considered one of upbeat redemption. While far
more fiscally successful than La Femme Nikita (and inspiring a
television series on American cable TV later in the 90's), the film
received only mixed reviews due to its strict adherence to the confines
of that predecessor. One area in which the two films differ
substantially is in the music, Eric Serra's somewhat generic approach to
the original discarded and replaced with a compelling combination of
Hans Zimmer's strikingly modern score and vintage performances by renown
soul singer Nina Simone. The assassin in Point of No Return has a
soft spot for Simone's performances and several of her songs are placed
directly into the film. The original score was an early Media Ventures
project, with Hans Zimmer assisted by Nick Glennie-Smith to produce
music that in many ways bridges two eras in Zimmer's career. Thrillers
with a touch of sensuality were not new to Zimmer, and Point of No
Return emulates some of the composer's trademark 1980's methodology
in handling those elements, but he also injects developing incarnations
of the synthetic muscularity that would eventually define his career
starting with Drop Zone the following year. To extend the Simone
influence into a new generation of bad-ass sentiment, Zimmer applies a
touch of gospel singing to Point of No Return as well, a sound
that this score shares quite effectively with The Preacher's
Wife. Together with electric guitar performances of a distinctly
cold attitude, Point of No Return is an odd combination of
Zimmer's career trademarks that is ultimately overshadowed, oddly
enough, by simple keyboarding of an incredibly beautiful theme. Decades
later, it endures as a personal favorite for many Zimmer collectors, and
for good reason.
The instrumentation for
Point of No Return spans
from the watery keyboarding of
Rain Man to synthetic-sounding
string and brass samples in its support, the gospel vocals and guitar
solos, and occasional deeper vocal and electronic contributions during
the score's propulsive portions. The "attitude" half of the score is led
by a genuinely cool, rocking percussive and string rhythm overlayed with
chanted ensemble vocals, roaring guitar solos (a precursor to
Drop
Zone more than
Broken Arrow), and extremely stylish the
gospel singing. This identity for the assassin's activities is expressed
twice on album, in "Hell's Kitchen" for her first, test assignment, and
in "Hate," which is a remarkably powerful opening that includes eerie
muted trumpet effects for a hint of film noir and the choral chanting of
the word "hate." As impressive as this material is, it cannot ultimately
compete in
Point of No Return with Zimmer's lovely theme for the
assassin's softer self. Introduced with almost new age simplicity later
in "Hate," this cue is explored in a variety of emotional states (of
mostly optimism) in "Happy Birthday, Maggie." The idea is surprisingly
simple in progression, but tragic in its minor-key personality. By the
end of the latter cue, Zimmer has infused the light rock and new age
elements from
Rain Man and
Toys into a bright, major-key
variation complete with solo woodwind and open trumpet performances over
almost giddy keyboard runs. The theme turns dark in "Wedding Bells," in
which sampled sound effects typical to Zimmer's 90's scores (such as the
pitch-falling effect) and ominous percussion, deep keyboarding and
chopping string figures, along with angry whole notes from the guitar,
convey the theme with the sense of betrayal in the air that Zimmer would
reprise in
Broken Arrow. The last minute or two of that cue
returns to the mood of its brighter variant. Only the second half of
"Hate," however, merges this lightly keyboarded theme with the gospel
vocals, yielding the highlight of the score. This three-minute sequence
represents everything that was fresh and alluring about Zimmer's career
at the time, a sound that he unfortunately jettisoned as his assignments
directed him towards a broader orchestral emphasis in later years.
Overall, a balance of attitude and style solicits feelings of fortitude
and redemption that translate well onto album. The commercial Milan
product contains about 25 minutes of score followed by five Simone cuts
of about 20 minutes in total. Breaking up the four long Zimmer tracks
would help the listening experience, and if the composer had been able
to elaborate upon these ideas for a longer score (an expanded bootleg
without sound effects only adds roughly five minutes of suspenseful,
non-thematic material), the resulting listening experience alongside the
Simone tracks could have elevated
Point of No Return to the
highest rating.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
Bias Check:
For Hans Zimmer reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.85
(in 128 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.96
(in 299,193 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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