A review by JAMES SOUTHALL

Robert Redford gets yet another action role in his old age in Pieter Jan Brugge's The Clearing, in which he plays a businessman kidnapped by a disgruntled former employee (Willem Defoe - who seems incapable of doing anything but "disgruntled"!) who then tries to get a $10m ransom.  For the music, Brugge turned to eclectic Scottish composer Craig Armstrong, who has delivered some strong work so far in his relatively short career on a wide range of movies, from the period gangster movie Plunkett and Macleane to the description-defying Moulin Rouge, from the serial killer thriller The Bone Collector to the romcom Love Actually.  On past form he does seem to show a lot of promise, though perhaps the electronic elements of his scores have been rather more impressive than the orchestral, but this time out things just don't seem right.

For a tense action thriller, the music isn't half dull.  Even when the track title promises something a little exciting ("Wayne Makes a Run for It", "Arnold Kidnaps Wayne") nothing much happens.  It's all about ambient, textural noise which you can barely hear even on the album, so exactly how it can make any impact in the movie I'm not too sure (though admittedly, I haven't yet seen it).  There is what is termed the main theme, heard in three tracks named as such, one for solo violin, one for solo piano and one for solo orchestra, but in all honesty it's difficult to tell them apart from the rest of the music.  Even the track titles are dull, almost like Christopher Young's jokingly banal ones ("Arnold Gets Dressed", "Tim Yells at Fuller", "Don't Forget the Trash", "Wayne's Cell Phone Rings" - who came up with these!?)  On the other hand, "You Need a Sign of Life" seems a remarkably apt thing for the composer to have reminded himself about while he was coming up with the score itself!

It's really hard to know what to say about this.  Surely it simply shouldn't have been released - there's nothing remotely interesting about it, it's just plain atmosphere, and not much of an atmosphere at that.  It's almost as if it's a layer of something to put on the film, onto which the actual musical score needs to be added, rather than being the musical score itself.  Imagine Thomas Newman at his absolutely most textural, take out the interest generated by his use of strange instruments, take out his themes, and multiply it by a thousand.  That's more or less what you get.  Overriding impression after listening?  It's 55 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

Tracks

1. The Clearing Main Theme (solo violin) (1:20)
2. Arnold Gets Dressed (1:23)
3. Arnold on his Way (1:47)
4. Wayne, Please Don't Be Late (1:00)
5. Arnold Kidnaps Wayne (1:27)
6. The Clearing Main Theme (solo piano) (2:45)
7. The Journey into the Forest (2:09)
8. A Cigarette Break (1:50)
9. Do You Know Louise Miller? (1:32)
10. Have Always Had That Moustache (2:24)
11. I Love My Wife (2:33)
12. Tim Yells at Fuller (2:22)
13. Wayne's Cell Phone Rings (1:36)
14. I Love Him and She Admires Him (1:28)
15. At the Stream (5:43)
16. It's Blood (1:48)
17. Wayne Makes a Run For It (2:09)
18. She's on the Move (2:53)
19. Stop Here Please (:53)
20. You Need a Sign of Life (5:38)
21. Don't Forget the Trash (1:43)
22. The Interrogation (1:43)
23. Wayne's Murder (:45)
24. I Have Everything I Need (3:14)
25. The Clearing Main Theme (orchestral) (3:08)