Recently, Intrada released Bruce Broughton's very first movie score, for The Prodigal, produced by Billy Graham's World Wide Pictures.  Now, they have released his most recent, Last Flight Out - and his second for Billy Graham's World Wide Pictures.  Talk about going full circle!  It's a very different affair this time, a religious romance-thriller set in remote parts of Columbia; though not so different that the only online review I could find called it "90 minutes of evangelistic proselytizing and limp character development".  Now might be the time for me to drag out my traditional comment which needs to be made whenever reviewing a score by Broughton - the guy really does deserve to be working on the most high-profile Hollywood films, not tv movies of the week and such minor features as this.

Of course, just because a feature is minor doesn't mean the composer isn't going to be inspired by it.  Unfortunately, the budget here clearly was minor and, unusually for Broughton, much of the "orchestral" parts of the score are synthesised.  Now, Broughton is skilful enough to make best use of his very small ensemble (there seem to be live flutes, pipes, guitars and percussion to go with the synths) but synth strings sound awful even when they are playing music composed by someone as great as Broughton.  I suspect he knows that, and to the fore he brings those elements mentioned in the previous sentence, making great use of various guitars played by George Doering to give the right ethnic feel.

He also brings some emotional feel, though (surprisingly) not a spiritual one.  The interpolation of "Amazing Grace" into a couple of tracks (notably "Talking to Annie" and "Dan's Prayer") is a really nice touch.  The main thrust here is a really nice Under Fire-style reflection of the location, with the guitars, pipes and flutes adding an impressively vivid colour.  "Salazar's Smoke" and "Getting Ready to Fly" are of particular note.  There isn't much action music, but when it does come, it is typically multi-layered and impressive: "The Villagers Run" is an exciting piece, with the synths and live elements combining very well together.  What I suppose is the main action theme gets a good workout in "The Escape", which again showcases lots of percussion.  There are also a couple of nice songs performed by Aaron Barker which aren't written by Broughton but fit in very well with the overall tone of the album, and are pretty nice by themselves anyway.

This is relaxing music, which makes for the sort of album that, despite being 50 minutes long, you can listen to and immediately start it over again.  It's not top-notch Broughton but certainly shows his abilities to work on a smaller scale and contains some characteristically strong melodies.  It contains the spirit and some of the excitement of Jerry Goldsmith scores like Under Fire and Medicine Man, but the budget never allows it to rise to quite the same heights.  Despite that, it's a very solid album, and very much recommended to fans of Broughton.