Fools of Fortune

Review by Thomas Glorieux:

Between all the action assignments, Hans Zimmer had time to make the drama work its way into several movies nonetheless, and one was for Pat O' Connor namely Fools of Fortune, a dramatic tale of a boy who loses his parents through conflicts in Ireland, and having the misfortune of growing up alone. Not a happy tale and this expresses itself in the music too, which is mostly somewhat darkly based and also dramatically emotional. For whatever reason, the CD was never released and for more reasons unknown, the bootleg presents the material in a very awkward 2 track release, even though together the music runs for about 42 minutes. Just like K2, and this doesn't always help the listening experience, but in truth it are the themes that make it still listenable and at times Zimmer magical like. The first of 2 tracks, directly a whopping 18 minutes is 'The Island' and is the least dark potented one, while still carrying little upbeat material. But when the upbeat material flies in, it is the Zimmer magic that comes shining through as I told you. It starts with the piano love theme, that will receive further attention and while its a typical Zimmer tone, it are the manners that link you towards the moves he made with the keyboard material in Point of no Return, but do not worry, this only means the Zimmer style is sometimes so apparent. This then moves to a jig (meaning upbeat material) and this is great stuff, further only followed by a horn solo over dark threatening material, classical waltzes that truly shine and the love theme growing to lovely standards, only to be signed off by the jig returning, here led by the piano. This jig is heard on the compilation Intruder and laid my interest firm in Fools of Fortune from then on.

The second track, a 24 minute cracker named 'Revenge' is the darkest of the 2, here we don't receive for instance the jig that so occasionally was needed in the first track. Here the love theme (somewhat reminiscent of Nine Months) appears gladly from time to time by piano, making still an emotional link with the listener. But also darker material is led for instance through solo violin (around the 10th minute or so), a pumping White Fang and K2 like darker fanfare for the revenge like maneuver on the 12th minute (with the familiar synthesizer whooshes), followed by more powerful and even atonal horror pieces, a large version of a dark fanfare is heard around the 16th minute and makes the mood slightly ready for the versions of the love theme that will end the score with several performances. Basically the dark mood is perhaps less enthralling but the themes or in the second track theme is still returning to make the link, just when you'd think you lose interest, there is the theme to put you back on track for sure. Not a favorite to listen to because of the way the score is presented, but it actually works as background material when doing something else and the themes are then simply picked out of the listen. Fools of Fortune is a forgotten entry because of the obscurity of the piece, as for the perhaps manner to present it with 2 suites, and perhaps that the music at times has the darker tones of Pacific Heights and Point of no Return, but altogether you have to admire the lovely themes Hans Zimmer has written for this score, and solely those themes make the listen of Fools of Fortune worth it, because they make the drama happen a couple of times on disc.

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Tracks

Single Disc

1. The Island (18.01)

2. Revenge (24.30)

Total Length: 42.34

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=== Link to Composer Site: Hans Zimmer ===