by PK on 5/7/1999
 
The score in the movie: Several moments in Face/Off prove John Woo had pure musical talent - in the form of little-known composer John Powell - when he made this action-thriller. Written with such intruiging mystery and beauty, Powell's main title takes us into Woo's world of visual poetry with no problems at all - some would call it "the perfect marriage of music and image." However, the intimate musical experience as transformed from the big screen to home stereo seems to have undergone surgical mishap, much like the wacky surgery John Travolta underwent in the film.

The score on the soundtrack album: What's present on this disc is a lot of the stuff we didn't hear in the movie. The soundtrack mostly offers music that fell victim to intense action scenes where it was made completely inaudible, crushed out by ear-piercing explosions and the thunderous sound of helicopters. We may have recognized "music" in the form of one or two notes when Powell's music busted through the film's wall of cacophonous "noise-effects," but is this the stuff we should want on a soundtrack? Where's the music we did hear?

When music takes center stage in a John Woo flick, it does so for a reason. For example, when Adam (character Gershon's five year-old son) is caught up in a huge crossfire between the FBI and the drug lords, his mother puts headphones over his ears, keeping him from experiencing the deafening sound of constant machine gun fire. What we see is Woo's hallmark slow-motion photography; what we hear is Olivia Newton-John's sweet vocal rendition of the classic "Over the Rainbow" - the song little Adam listens to on the headphones as he watches the bloodbath. Is this song on the soundtrack? Of course not. Should it be? For sure, as it truly was memorable musical moment in the film!

The soundtrack unfortunately misses out on the essential "theme" of Face/Off: the main title music. If we were given the chance to hear again the mood of Powell's main title apart from the film, it would certainly bring back into our minds the mystery and suspense of Face/Off - not the 30 minutes of unlistenable Hans Zimmer-influenced synth riffs that are offered on this soundtrack.