As so often with Sam Peckinpah, The Osterman Weekend (1983), the great
director's final film, promised more than it delivered. Starting with an
ingeniously plotted, if rather contrived Robert Ludlum espionage novel as
source material, it could have been a movie thriller classic. Unfortunately
the men in suits didn't allow Peckinpah to rewrite the not entirely coherent
script, to cast his own first choices in leading roles, or to have final
control over the editing process. The result was an entertaining, but
frustratingly botched movie.
Lalo Schifrin's score is both in the lineage of his Dirty Harry urban
thriller soundtracks, and very much of its time. Thus we have the agitated
minimal jazz of Schifrin's 70's work, stark atonal textures, and elements
of stripped-down instrumental 'almost' rock as pioneered by John Carpenter
in his scores for his own films Assault on Precinct 13, The Fog and
Escape From New York. 'The Osterman Weekend theme' opens with a choppy
funk guitar riff, and when a brooding resonant synthesiser filter sweep glides
menacingly across the soundfield expectations are raised, but then the track
breaks into an upbeat jazz rock fusion piece in the style that was popular
in the early 80's and any tension immediately evaporates.
'Face of Love' is a laid back easy listening jazz sax tune that might have
suited Francois Lai's Bilitis, and is situated somewhere approaching
the moon and New York city. Yes, Arthur was released the year before
The Osterman Weekend. The suspense proper begins with 'Winter Games',
dark jazzy atmospherics that really don't stand alone well, setting the tone
for several other cues scattered throughout the disc. Meanwhile 'Restless
Nights' is more cocktail sultry sax, pleasant but too middle-of-the-road
to sustain interest. The main theme is put through some featherweight sub-Weather
Report variations in 'Status Symbol', more the kind of thing associated with
a Henry Mancini Pink Panther OST than a dark and savage thriller.
'The Love Theme' is distinguished by what sounds like a decidedly wrong note
at 20 seconds in, but that is all. 'Newsbreak' is exactly as the title suggests,
pastiche tv news report music. 'Omega' builds on a repeated, Carpenteresque
two note riff, and does generate some suspense, but it is too little, too
late. 'It's a Mystery' continues in similar vein, adding glacial wooden flute
over repeated a five-note sequence, while 'Jesus Loves Me' is ice cold atonal
minimalism. The final track, 'Face of Love' is another MOR sugary sax-led
tune, rounding off a thoroughly un-engaging set.
This is a score which adds little to the film, and offers few pleasures indeed
on disc - the mixture of lounge jazz and suspense tracks really doesn't add
up to a coherent listening experience. Sound quality is good though, especially
on the jazz tracks. The electronic elements tend to have that dry, thin quality
which makes early synthesiser scores sound so flat and unappealing, and the
album does have one notable credit - apparently Mr Schifrin had an 'electronic
assistant', Gary Stockdale. The cover design is somewhat tacky, but the CD
itself fits the subject of the film, being presented as an archery target
with the only text being the copyright legend. Lalo Schifrin has written
some fine scores, but this is not one of them. One for completists only.
Reviewer
Gary S. Dalkin
music conducted
by the composer 
