Tower Heist Composed by Christophe Beck
Promotional Release (2010)
Rating:
6/10
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“When judged solely
outside the film, BECK’S score comes off as consistently sufficient
in evoking the assumedly mythically glamorous side of a life of
crime without ever breaking any boundaries.”
Consistently Sufficient
Review by Richard Buxton
The prospect of a typical Heist movie is rarely, if ever, met with the
voracious expectation of originality by legions of salivating fans.
Rather, a heist movie such as TOWER HEIST is expected to provide an
assortment of thrills that generally follow a loose but ultimately
formulaic template. The genre has generally been defined by a repetitious
history, regardless of whether the template chosen is of a serious or more
comedic nature. Audiences of recent years will largely be familiar with
the trilogy of OCEAN’S films, with the first in the trio setting the
standard for the comedic heist thriller of the last decade. Once the
elaborate crime is in motion TOWER HEIST does little to dispel the
suspicion that it will not be the film to break the mould, yet it is in
the nature of its protagonist’s that TOWER HEIST stands out.
Unlike OCEAN’S ELEVEN, TOWER HEIST follows the fumbling attempts to secure
a multi-million dollar figure from a fraudulent Wall Street businessman.
The idea that, apart from one character TOWER HEIST’S “heroes” are all
amateurs is clearly the catalyst for comedic capers perhaps unseen in
previous heist movies. Not only does this provide the filmmaker’s with an
opportunity, it also provides composer CHRISTOPHE BECK with the chance to
walk a road less traveled. From the opening titles of TOWER HEIST, it’s
obvious that despite this, TOWER HEIST is going to offer little more than
the stereotypical swagger of a heist score with an added dash of comedic
tension thrown into the mix.
When judged solely outside the film, BECK’S score comes off as
consistently sufficient in evoking the assumedly mythically glamorous side
of a life of crime without ever breaking any boundaries. Without prior
knowledge of the film’s intricate details, one could easily conjure up
ties between BECK’S strutting brass and guitar motif’s and a cast of
stylish OCEAN’S types. Yet, alongside and after a viewing of the film,
BECK’S score does establish and maintain a surprisingly strong connection
with the film’s cast of misfits. Despite this, the composer clearly found
a comfort zone within the boundaries of TOWER HEIST, and rarely suggests
he ever thought to push beyond them.
The majority of TOWER HEIST’S music revolves around the grooving main
theme. The mixture of the pulsing bass guitar, smooth keyboard and
bombastic brass provides the film with the sufficient suaveness without
going so far as to claim this group of amateurs could ever masquerade as
career-criminals. BECK holds back just enough from OCEAN’S territory with
this theme, keeping things in context. The main problem with this theme is
that it offers so little in evolutionary opportunity. From its opening
statement to the finale, the remains largely the same. “Theme from Tower
Heist” (1) provides the all-encompassing review of the theme, while tracks
such as “We Go On Snoopy” (12) provide a sneaking but ultimately bare
variation. The staccato bass-line of the theme appears regularly
throughout the score, in the shuffling “Fifty Dollar Thrift Lift” (10) for
instance, or in percussion and string form in “Arrested” (19).
Outside of the opening presentation of the main theme, the highlight of
TOWER HEIST comes from the mercifully somewhat less predictable
action/tension music. Unfortunately, this side of the score is in short
supply, only making an appearance in brief flurries of breathless brass
action in the likes of “Shaft Fail” (17), the criminally brief “Odessa’s
Cake” (18), the abrasive “Courthouse Con” (13) and the pensively ascending
“Grand Theft Auto” (14).
Running for a total of 40 minutes, TOWER HEIST is of a reasonable length
as far as soundtrack releases go, but it becomes immediately apparent that
the score doesn’t contain the necessary variation within its musical fiber
to sustain any consistent attention from the average listener. The score
tends to fall back on the main theme far too often considering its
simplistic, although admittedly appropriate, design. Had CHRISTOPHE BECK
taken the action and suspense sides of the score to greater levels, TOWER
HEIST may have risen above the sea of sufficient scores into the company
of scores that go beyond the bare minimum of fitting in with the film they
were written for.
