• Composed by John Debney
• La-La Land Records / 2013 / 61m

A 2013 television retelling of the famous criminal exploits of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, Bonnie & Clyde has an impressive pedigree both in front of and behind the camera and was pretty well received.  Australian director Bruce Beresford’s movies have an impressive musical pedigree, including a few films with the great Georges Delerue and more recently Christopher Gordon.  This project marked his first collaboration with John Debney, whose extraordinarily chameleonic musical nature means you’re never quite sure what to expect.  On album things don’t get off to a particularly promising start with an anachronistic drum loop but quickly move on from that and the music blossoms into a colourful and satisfying portrait of the time and the characters.

There are a few different ideas that are used repeatedly by Debney to build the score.  There’s a bit of big band swing evoking the era; some smoky, sexy jazz from the Chinatown school of scoring; and most impressively some full-flavoured action music pretty obviously modelled on Mark Isham’s wonderful The Black Dahlia, with the secondary benefit of occasionally bringing to mind the score that itself inspired parts of that one, LA Confidential.  If that makes it all sound like a bit of a hodge-podge confection then perhaps it is; but it’s a very entertaining one, the composer pitching things at just the right level.  The orchestra appears to be largely sampled (presumably for budgetary reasons) with a few acoustic solos laid over, but the samples are so high quality, it’s no problem.  The hour of music here provides a really nice way of spending some time and is the most impressive thing I’ve heard from this composer in quite a while.

Rating: *** 1/2

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