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Artwork copyright (c) 2004 Touchstone
Pictures; review copyright (c)
2004 James Southall
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HIDALGO Lovely
eastern western A review by JAMES SOUTHALL Despite becoming ever-higher on Hollywood's list of favourite
composers, James Newton Howard's finest work was roughly a decade ago with two
outstanding scores in quick succession, Wyatt Earp and Waterworld,
and fans have been waiting a long time for him to return to the same sort of
epic territory. Well, the wait is over now, with Hidalgo, a
slightly ridiculous film starring Viggo Mortensen about a horse race across
Arabia in the late nineteenth century, apparently based on a true story (and
Touchstone Pictures has also just issued a press release confirming that Father
Christmas is real after all). Director Joe Johnston has often made
particularly prescient choices of composer for his movies, from James Horner on The
Rocketeer through Mark Isham on October Sky, and this is no
exception. Mortensen is clearly not quite the star the studio hoped he
might be, and he's no Peter O'Toole, but Johnston was obviously going for a
David Lean / Lawrence of Arabia feel to the movie, which extends, at
least a little, to the score, which plays for the most part like an expansive
western score with westernised Arab ethnic hints thrown in along the way. The music is very attractive and impressive. While it
lacks a memorable theme, Howard makes up for it with sheer energy and excitement
in many tracks and outright beauty in the other ones, sometimes favouring
long-lined string melodies, sometimes old-fashioned orchestral action
music. "The Race Begins", while brief, is an excellent example
of the action music; it could easily come from Wyatt Earp.
"The Second Half" is a gorgeous piece with Lawrence-ish chord
progressions which could hardly sound more grand and dignified without being
especially imposing or portentous. While much of the music is quite bright
and colourful, there are elements of darkness too, particularly with the
desperate "Sandstorm", a fine piece of action scoring. "Katib"
is a lovely, flavoursome piece, uplifting and evocative of a beautiful
sunset. One of the more impressive cues is the longest, the truly
inspiringly-named "Montage", which includes - as all scores seem to at
the moment - a wailing, Middle Eastern vocal, this time performed by Hovig
Krikorian. Clichéd it may be, but it's also good to listen to and doesn't
seem as out of place in this score as it does in almost all the
others. The last few cues are especially good. "The
Trap" is a frantic, pulsating action piece, the best thing Howard's written
in years. The pace diminishes in "The Last Push", but the
quality doesn't, with the composer bringing in some more fine writing for
strings, this time with a lovely trumpet solo accompanying. "The
Final Three" is a bright, breezy, exciting action cue which demonstrates
Howard at his very best, using all the techniques he's developed over the
years. Finally, there's the predictably-rousing climax "Let 'Er
Buck" (?) which is a nice way to round the album off. Hidalgo
is certainly a return to form for the composer - which has been a long time
coming - and sees him writing in a far more fluid way than usual, ditching the
mickey-mousing which makes so many of his scores so frustrating. OK, so
it's hardly Lawrence of Arabia or even The Mummy, but it's a solid
blockbuster score and goes down as an early highlight of the year. Buy
this CD from amazon.com by clicking here! Tracks
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