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A review by JAMES SOUTHALL

It's surprising really how many good scores have been written for John Grisham films, whose talky, courtroom-dominated nature you might think wouldn't really be the best sort of material for composers; but with a pair of genuinely first-rate efforts in Elmer Bernstein's The Rainmaker (by far the best Grisham adaptation on film) and Elliot Goldenthal's A Time to Kill, along with others like James Horner's The Pelican Brief, Dave Grusin's The Firm and Howard Shore's The Client, you could tell that Christopher Young was having a fairly tough act to follow when he scored the latest Grisham potboiler to have made its way to the big screen, Runaway Jury.

Well, we needn't have worried.  Of all the scores mentioned above, the one that Runaway Jury most resembles is the excellent The Rainmaker, though there are also frequent echoes of Thomas Newman scores like Pay it Forward, Road to Perdition and Fried Green Tomatoes along with past Young efforts such as The Big Kahuna and Wonder Boys.  None of which is meant to say that it's a hodge-podge score full of lifts from other things, because it certainly isn't; just trying to give a bit of background on what it sounds like!

One big surprise is the amount of really exciting music, especially the terrific "Shark Tactics", and "Voir Dire" seems to belong in a Jerry Bruckheimer action blockbuster (though the music's far better than if it really were in a Jerry Bruckheimer action blockbuster).  I'm not quite sure what it's doing in a courtroom drama, but then I've neither read the book nor seen the film, yet, so I'm sure all will become clear for me at some stage.  Young also has some wonderfully emotive string writing that is rather moving and very mournful; and the final element of the score is the jazzy stuff, of which there is quite a lot, with guitars and percussion riffs and the wonderful device (which Young has used a few times before) of having a female vocalist pass in and out of the music, working in perfect tandem with the jazz ensemble.

The album is put together very well, with tracks being compiled in such a way that nothing ever drags and you never feel a simple idea is being stuck with for too long, which is quite an accomplishment on a 60-minute release.  My only slight complaint would be that there is a slight sense of having heard this sort of score a few times already from Young, but nevertheless he has pulled it off with a lot of flair (as usual) and it's a recommended album.

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Tracks

1. Runaway Jury (5:35)
2. Dumb Witness (1:31)
3. Cheaper by the Dozen (3:05)
4. The Game's Afoot (1:22)
5. Not Lady Liberty (1:54)
6. Shark Tactics (4:26)
7. The Divine Komeda (1:57)
8. Jury for Sale (2:49)
9. Easter's Con (1:00)
10. Voir Dire (6:04)
11. Habeas Corpus (2:41)
12. Rankin Fitch (3:42)
13. Spilt Whiskey (2:07)
14. The Devil's Not Such a Bad Guy After All (2:01)
15. Erase Her from my Heart (4:16)
16. Fayeth in Fate no More (8:31)
17. Who Hurt You? (3:05)
18. Unconditional Love (2:51)