The Saint

Review by Thomas Glorieux:

Strange but true, Graeme Revell has scored a lot of movies that I have seen in the past, still his name was a mystery for a long time. And recording to my knowledge, all those scores worked immensely in their respective movies. The Saint, that stars Val Kilmer and Elisabeth Shue is just my second score of Revell, and hearing some sound clips, it offered and promised much. But as always, when you expect too much you might be disappointed at the end. Not to say that The Saint disappoints in general, it still remains a solid listen. Recording to sources, the love theme uses several bars of John Barry's theme of You Only Live Twice. This I can not confirm however. What I can say is that the begin and end is rather enjoyable and pleasant, but the middle is something completely different. Revell starts the score with the main theme heard in 'Main Title', this is a solid action motif heard in other tracks like 'Break-In', 'Kremlin Riot / Karpov's Room' and 'The Fight'. The main love theme is also attractive and listens like a breath of fresh air after those pounding action rhythms, mainly in 'Love Theme' and 'Love Theme Finale'. The rest and this especially includes the middle is rather disappointing, loud and it really becomes unpleasant.

This of course can be explained if the movie is portraying some rather difficult scenes, but also this is unknown to me because I haven't seen the movie. Still, they bother the overall mood of the score. The end is solid but what the score really lacks are impressive highlights. An example is the short and rather intriguing choral piece found in 'Kremlin Riot / Karpov's Room' but this really isn't sufficient in general. The score as a whole is consistent in tone and varies from action to thriller to romance, but this doesn't mean it all sounds good. The Saint is rather bland in its construction and it doesn't really offer something that we can not find in other scores. This is disappointing because I expected something more, and those sound files really promised much. Graeme Revell has created a score that will sooth its movie and scenery and the sound quality is extremely loud, this is actually the first time that I had to lower the volume and it maintained a powerful or at certain moments unpleasant experience nonetheless. The truth is, I'm not a Revell fan and I stumbled on this score by accidence. This means that I can not recommend this score for some better moments of music, only the Revell fans will want to dig out every second of it. That shows that you must never hope for the best, because disappointment will always be luring around the corner on half of the occasions.

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Tracks

Single Disc

1. Main Title (6.26)

2. Break-In * (3.46)

3. Shelley Monument (2.16)

4. Searching Apartment (3.38)

5. Love Theme (2.54)

6. The River Chase (3.15)

7. The Tunnels (2.35)

8. Race To Embassy (2.22)

9. Tempelhof (2.41)

10. Love Theme (Second Version) * (2.54)

11. Kremlin Riot / Karpov's Room (4.40)

12. Red Square (3.09)

13. The Fight (5.39)

14. Love Theme Finale (5.27)

* Different Version contained in the Film

Total Length: 52.13

The use of artwork or photos is posted for non profitable reasons

=== Link to Composer Site: Graeme Revell ===