All Against All

The political thriller All Against All is a Croatian/Slovenian/North Macedonian production directed by Andrej Košak, who also wrote the screenplay, which he based it on true events in Slovenia, surrounding mayor Franc Kangler. The film could be made due to support from various subsidy funds in the aforementioned countries. The critics were not very favorable in their reviews.
The story revolves around Franta Kramberger (Vlado Novak), the mayor of the town of Rovt. He is corrupt and wants to be re-elected at all costs. When he loses in a TV debate, he calls his mistress Jožica (Iva Krajnc Bagola) for help. He has already given her an apartment as a gift and now expects something in return. She advises him to to enlist the help of a man called Fleischmann (Valter Dragan) to eliminate his opponent before the elections...

The music for this thriller is from the Italian composer Kristian Sensini, who composed a rather minimalist score for it. The instrumentation consists of no more than a few guitars, flute, piano, keyboards, electric bass and a limited addition of music from the electronic box of tricks.
The music is completely in a minor key, which gives the music a somewhat sad atmosphere. This is heard from the opening track on, in which guitars and flute, supplemented with light percussion, play the theme for Franta. The music is regularly presented in a somewhat staccato manner, with loose fingerpicking from the guitars, but strumming the guitars in the middle part, with a melody on the flute.
The tension increases in the second track, in which fairly loosely played clear piano sounds play on a slightly growling background. It is mainly that background that gives the music a more grim coloring.

The third track 'Puzzle Pieces' is by far the longest on the album, with over thirteen minutes playing time. The tension is also clearly audible in the music here. The many incidental sounds and loose piano motifs, loose guitar sounds, the flute played solo on loose low piano tones, the slowness of the music, it all plays a role to increase the tension. Yet without the images of the film it feels a bit barren, which is mainly due to the minimalist nature of the music. Occasionally the electric guitar joins in with some heavier riffs, but they remain rather incidental sounds, which are played as a kind of delayed staccato. Also electronic sounds are present and often give a somewhat alienating effect to the music.

The minimalist sounds continue, also in the following tracks. The guitar sounds are often quite beautiful, but in terms of melodies it's not all that appealing, because the music had to fit this thriller. Sensini found the inspiration for these compositions in the music for all kinds of Italian thrillers from the seventies of the previous century. His study hours with Ennio Morricone came in handy, where he learned to make smart choices in terms of musical color, orchestrations and methods to build compositions. In that sense, Sensini listened carefully to Morricone, who also regularly worked with minimalist sounds in his thriller scores.
The filmmakers gave Sensini plenty of space to shape his music, after which they incorporated this into the end result of the film.

The album closes with the track 'All the Major's Women', which has a light jazzy style. The piano and flute play the leading role, while light jazz percussion and fingerpicking guitar complete the music. The keyboard is added halfway through, which takes away the jazzy style a bit and makes the music sound a little more pleasant.

In short, with his music for the political thriller All Against All, Kristian Sensini has composed a rather minimalist score. The music is in a minor key, but still very listenable, and will without a doubt fit the film perfectly. Whether you like it is a different story. It doesn't really appeal to me. The instrumentations are quite nice, but it the minimalist character and the arrangements in a minor key, together with the somewhat meager melodies and the musical tension, makes it mixed blessing. Therefor the rating gets no more than 58 out of 100 points.