Faster (Soundtrack) by Clint Mansell - Review

The Faster, The Better?
Review by Richard Buxton

Clint Mansell has built an impressive and wide-ranging filmography in his twelve years in the industry. From being Aronofsky’s go-to-composer to scoring the likes of SAHARA and DOOM, no matter what shortcomings he might have, he has always shown diversity. Despite such a range of projects, Mansell has gained recognition through individual tracks from two or three films, though it is the track “Lux Aeterna” from REQUIEM FOR A DREAM that stands out from the rest as being the piece that gave the world its first glimpse of his talents. The standout piece of the FASTER score was re-recorded by Corner Stone Cues for use as trailer music. Since then a number of Mansell’s compositions have been utilised in motion picture advertising such as “Together With Live Forever” from THE FOUNTAIN and the sublime “Dead Reckoning” from SMOKIN’ ACES. With Mansell’s clear ability to compose powerful and memorable self-contained pieces it is perhaps easy to forget that he regularly produces solid entire scores that do justice to the film they compliment

So, it comes as no surprise that Mansell has been employed as the composer to FASTER, the latest film to star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. FASTER is a film of the revenge variety, in which previously incarcerated Driver (Johnson) sets out on a mission to avenge the death of his brother. While Mansell’s diverse background in scoring results no surprise in his appointment, the same cannot be said of the director George Tillman Jr. who has been at the helm of films such as NOTORIOUS, MEN OF HONOR and SOUL FOOD. Therefore, directing an action-revenge film comes as somewhat of a surprise.

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