Don't Say a Word

Although a jazz trumpeter by trade, Mark Isham has become a successful and versatile film composer who slips easily between film genres. For Don't Say a Word, we have the psychological thriller - or at least something along those lines. Unfortunately, long gone are the days when Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann would serve up something truly great and so we're down to graphic melodrama, arty lighting and lots of 'we know where you live' telephone conversations.

Isham has written for thrillers before, most notably The Net, but none of these have been especially memorable and Don't Say a Word does little to buck the trend. It starts out badly with Heist which will likely be enjoyed depending on your liking for Trevor Rabin style thumping bass and samples. As you can imagine, it did nothing for me and functions as little more than droning musical wallpaper. Admittedly there is more invention than in the average Rabin score, but that's not exactly saying much. The ensuing tracks are better, but still offer little beyond fairly presentable suspense, with the large orchestra (with no less than seven harps players - where did they get to exactly?!) relegated into second place behind the bleeps and samples.

Like Mancina's Domestic Disturbance released around the same time, Don't Say a Word isn't anything more than a standard, but efficient thriller score. Unlike Mancina's, there aren't even any decent thematic fragments of theme so the entire thing is just a series of barely coherent musical episodes. I say bring back the Mark Isham of Fly Away Home (quite possibly his best score, yet infuriatingly unreleased at the time of writing) and Quiz Show than waste him on crud like this.