- Composed by Justin Burnett
- Varèse Sarabande / 2013 / 41m
Getaway sounds like a film worth seeing. Nicolas Cage was clearly unexpectedly busy because instead it’s Ethan Hawke playing a burned-out racing driver who has to get back behind the wheel one last time to save his wife from mortal danger. At the time of writing, the film has an impressive 2% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, with 2 out of 107 reviews being positive, and an average score of 2.6 out of 10. Definitely worth seeing. Still, the film doesn’t have to be any good in order to get a decent score, which is by Justin Burnett, easily the most high-profile he’s done as a headline composer (though he’s had a mixture of credits on Media Ventures and Remote Control scores going back as far as 1996). It begins entertainingly enough, with a very familiar rhythmic pattern forming what might be called the main theme in the opening track, then a piece of barnstorming action in “Stealing the Shelby”.
It’s all done with samples (or at least, I assume it is – you can never be entirely sure with these scores) and it’s done well enough. The action when it appears is full of energy and provides the requisite thrills, though they are somewhat fleeting and don’t last long in the memory. The trouble is, after the impressive opening, a fair proportion of the album consists of pretty uninteresting textural suspense music, punctuated by action from time to time. That action when it appears is worth listening, but highly repetitive – it’s hard to distinguish one track from another. (Yes, the HORN OF DOOM does appear, though you have to wait till the end of the tenth track, “Heavy Traffic”.) Also, it’s a fairly brief album by modern standards and much of it still isn’t all that interesting. One suspects that with a larger scope and a bigger budget that Burnett could write something really rather entertaining – this score has its moments, but not quite enough. Getaway is decent, but sounds all too disposable to leave a lasting impression.
Rating: ** 1/2
facebook.com/moviewave | twitter.com/MovieWaveDotNet | amazon.com
Leave a Reply