Running Scared

It can be quite frustrating being a Mark Isham fan; for every lovely slice of tuneful Coplandmania, or engaging jazz, there are his rather run of the mill thriller scores. With Running Scared, there is some cause for optimism as his previous score for the director was The Cooler, a fine jazz number. Unfortunately, at over an hour, Running Scared is simply far too long for the material and the good moments are easily outnumbered by the mundane synth percussion action passages. The start is strong; the main theme seems to come straight out of the Morricone tune book. The melodic twists and the bass guitar leading the way gives the impression that it could easily come from one of the maestro's 70's thriller scores and not disgrace any of them.

After the fine (if ridiculously brief) opening, Love on a Washing Machine introduces an equally find acoustic guitar melody which makes a number of appearances throughout. Unfortunately, The Duke and, in particular, 'Get Down!' set the tone for the action music; synth loops and not a fat lot else. I suppose it has an urbane grittiness about it, but beyond a minute or two, passages start to sound interchangeable and the whole thing becomes rather monotonous. A couple of short passages are more interesting; Fire Fight features some angry electric guitar riffs that seem to have escaped from one of Elliot Goldenthal's more modern efforts, but the shot of invention is short lived and doesn't really go anywhere.

The suspense isn't up to much either and there are a number of rather long tracks which could easily have been pruned; Dez and Edele's and A Mother's Instinct are almost fourteen minutes that nobody would have missed. Only when it explodes into percussion in the final closing minutes does Iced! become even remotely interesting, but after seven minutes, it's a challenge to wait that long. The opening theme is reprised for the End Credits (even if it goes a bit astray in the closing seconds) leaving a much stronger impression than the bulk of the score deserves. Undoubtedly fine enough if the film, but on disc, disappointingly pedestrian.