Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,345
Written 9/16/10
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Buy it... only if you are very familiar with Harry
Gregson-Williams' established electronic suspense mode of atmospheric
intent and seek a restrained extension of the thematic development in
Gone Baby Gone.
Avoid it... if you expect anything before the final minute of this
sadly generic, largely ambient score to match the depth of development
in the characters of The Town.
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Gregson-
Williams |
The Town: (Harry Gregson-Williams/David Buckley)
The humanization of professional criminals is the goal of Ben Affleck's
2010 crime thriller The Town, examining the psyches of a veteran
crew of bank robbers in Boston and, in particular, the mixed emotions
that result when the group's leader falls in love with the manager at
the bank of one of his prior robberies. Affleck writes, directs, and
stars in the picture, conveying his disillusionment with his
family-honored profession but finding it difficult to extract himself
from his crew even when the FBI closes in on him. Buzz about The
Town prior to its release was overwhelmingly positive, Affleck's
ability to generate interest in a generic concept through engrossing
character development praised early and often. Among the consistencies
in Affleck's style of moviemaking, along with all the hallmarks of
Boston, is the kind of music he has preferred in both this film and his
directorial debut in 2007, Gone Baby Gone. He returns once again
to the services of veteran chameleon Harry Gregson-Williams to provide
the balance between technologically-defined, urban suspense and
traditionally harmonic, character-based themes. Gregson-Williams' career
has been difficult to define since his successful graduation from his
affiliation with Hans Zimmer, alternating between orchestral epics and
extremely minimalistic suspense scores. The latter style has tormented
fans of the former since the late 1990's, and the composer's workmanlike
synthetic ambience keeps him busy despite translating into generally
boring listening experiences on album that appeal to only a subsection
of his collectors. A fellow composer and regular collaborator of
Gregson-Williams is David Buckley, who wrote additional music for many
of the more famous composer's assignments, including Gone Baby
Gone. For The Town, Buckley finally receives official
co-compositional credit for his contribution, though the score doesn't
really have any of the usual indicators of incongruence or disparate
styles that sometimes results from such partnerships. Anyone familiar
with Gone Baby Gone and this pair's prior suspense works on a
smaller budget (or limited scope) will hear absolutely nothing new in
The Town. Unfortunately, with the depth of character development
in this film, a more intellectually thoughtful and less conservatively
ambient approach may have been a better solution.
The ensemble for
The Town is predictably sparse,
relying heavily on the synthetic realm to not only maintain rhythmic
flow but also perpetuate a hazy, foggy feeling of dissatisfaction
experienced by the primary character. An orchestral string section joins
a piano and electric guitar in addressing the sensitive side of his
struggle, with the strings sometimes providing a layer of gravity to the
otherwise stale and standard sampled rhythms. Structurally,
The
Town consists of two main elements and little in between to connect
them. The electronic side of the score that dominates its running time
alternates between subtle and marginalized loops of nondescript
character and thumping, abrasive action cues, offering little new to
these composers' enthusiasts. Leading in terms of volume is "Bank
Attack," which uses sampled screaming bird sounds (seagulls?) and
backwards edits of the same old synth tones of the 1990's to create an
obnoxious environment of fear. Most of the other cues will slip past
without any notice, only the slightly dissonant aspect of their
character forming a memory. Some typical 2000's string ostinatos hinted
at in "Who Called 911?" and bursting in "Leaving" give these tones some
late life, but they still are tired devices. The second half of
The
Town (though the minority of its running time) is its main
attraction, consisting of a lovely theme that understandably takes the
entirety of the score to express the extent of its heart. Heard in
troubled shades on guitar in "Doug Reflects" and piano in "Healing and
Stealing" and "The Necklace," the pacing of this theme starts to show
signs of life in "Sunny Days" before truly blossoming in "The Letter."
That last cue contains the only full ensemble performance of the theme,
led by a longing violin solo that exudes the personality of an Irish
lullaby not too dissimilar, quite strangely, to parts of Joel McNeely's
2008 score for the children's film
Tinkerbell. Unfortunately,
this absolutely gorgeous, single-minute conclusion to the score is, even
along with the five or so minutes of acoustic reflection prior, both too
derivative a sound and too little, too late to save what is ultimately a
troubling and thankfully short album experience. The electronic
techniques utilized here are beyond the days of their intelligent
usefulness, especially in an album presentation, and Gregson-Williams
and Buckley fail to adapt the thematic base of the score into these
suspense cues with any of the convincing intrigue that a film like this
deserves. It's a frustratingly underachieving and generic score.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
Bias Check:
For Harry Gregson-Williams reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3
(in 40 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.98
(in 55,240 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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