An entertaining if routine hostage drama, Proof of Life seemed to attract far more attention for the off-screen shenanigans of its stars Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan than it did for anything that actually happened on the screen, but it was reasonably compelling, as usual for director Taylor Hackford.  For composer Danny Elfman, it was a rare film without much of a hook - he tends to work on either films directed by people with whom he's built up a relationship over several years, or sometimes other ones which provide something of interest; he rarely does straightforward Hollywood fare, but that's what this is.  Needless to say, his music is as far from straightforward Hollywood fare as you get.

Because of the film's South American setting, Elfman took the opportunity to incorporate vast swathes of percussion into his score to give a propulsive and oppressively humid atmosphere to the film, succeeding very well.  This is all done right from the word go, with the composer keeping things moving along at a fair old pace.  Much of the album's first half is made up of suspense music, but it's far more interesting than is usual for that particular brand of film music, and it is all frequently embellished with exotic colours courtesy of the percussion, guitars and even pan pipes (don't groan, they sound excellent the way they're used here).  Things build up to an excellent finale with the action tracks "Escape" and "The Rescue", which are really quite thrilling, and "The Finale" itself, a six minute summary of the score's best bits.

When Elfman first burst onto the scene it was on the back of really quite traditional orchestral scores with big themes; these remain, easily, his most popular.  Since the mid 1990s, though, he's barely dipped into that well at all, creating instead some of the most complicated and detailed scores of the era, pioneering a genuinely modern sound with samples integrating seamlessly with an orchestra, and doing that far better than virtually anyone else.  Frankly I find his modern style far more interesting, not to say refreshing.  Of course "big theme" scores have their place, but they rarely have quite the same staying power as these more complex works, simply because they become too repetitive after a while.  It is heartening that in amongst all the dross, a composer like Elfman is still able to thrive.  Proof of Life is a pulsating, simmering work, a great score.