by craig on 11/12/2004
favorite track: 18
 
I love Cliff Martinez' music. He's one of the most under-appreciated composers in the business who's done some beautiful work. This whole score, like the movie, adds up to one thing. For the movie it wasn't as obvious as being the last scene. It was what was happening during the credit sequence. A Mexican little league baseball game being played, at night, on a nice new field supplied by some American officials, complete with bleachers and lights. All made possible with the exchange of information. And what was happening on our side of the border? Families were healing in the aftermath of their child's drug addiction, cops were looking for better ways to catch drug dealers. The gov't is still fighting a never ending drug war, being supplied by... you guessed it, Mexico. The last track on this album, "Ascension" by Brian Eno is this quiet addendum to another day ending in the war that's never won. But some of the smaller battles, and their walking wounded, find victory just being alive. The whole score sounds like "A Day in the Life of..." and you take each character and what they were trying too achieve, and it shows different phases of their experience: the newly appointed Drug Czar in Washington, the Mexican police officer getting a new detail, the two cops in L.A. babysitting their star witness. It all applies, just like the "law of nature" with drugs. Martinez is a Soderbergh staple. And Martinez is tailored to take that world that Steven Soderbergh creates, and applies with subtlety, more range to it. Great score.