Air Force One (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Album Review

After director Wolfgang Petersen rejected Air Force One's first completed score — Randy Newman's work was reportedly deemed too dark and insufficiently patriotic — Jerry Goldsmith was brought in as a replacement, and while it hardly feels like a rush job, the completed project remains one of Goldsmith's lesser efforts. For better or worse, he delivers on everything Newman did not. This Air Force One is undeniably rousing and shamelessly jingoistic, but it also recycles ideas and approaches from earlier, better Goldsmith scores to diminishing returns. His consummate mastery of the action genre remains astonishing — the eight-minute "The Hijacking" is a veritable master class in suspense — but the scarcity of new and compelling ideas dilutes the music's overall impact.