Klaus Badelt's career, still in its infancy, has been pretty diverse so far: colourful action in The Time Machine, dour classicism in K-19, quirky (and brilliant, brilliant) drama in The Pledge. Now we get chilled-out "mood music" in The Recruit, Roger Donaldson's latest thriller. I say it every time I review one of his scores, and so I shall say again that Badelt is the only composer to have emerged from Media Ventures (apart from Hans Zimmer) and shown such a diverse and imaginative array of composing talents; this isn't to say that the other composers aren't talented, just that they have become quickly typecast as second-rate Zimmers and Badelt simply hasn't - nothing in his scores sound like other Media Ventures scores.

This is very much a "background score"; there's no real degree of edginess to it, it certainly doesn't hit any obvious dramatic points. The feel stays pretty constant throughout - it's the kind of laid-back, contemporary instrumental sound that would probably appeal to people who buy "Classical Chillout" albums. The basic material is not bad, but essentially every track is very similar to the one that went before: by the time fifty minutes have elapsed, the mood has become irritatingly unchanging. Even the track "To The Farm", which accompanies a scene in which Al Pacino and Colin Farrell travel to a Welsh Hill Farm and have some leek soup, doesn't shift mood.

Instrumentation is sparse: electronic percussion, synthesised brass (and noises) and a small string orchestra throughout. The Recruit is an enjoyably easy listen, but probably twenty minutes too long and certainly not with the merits of some of Badelt's other scores.

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