Director Tony Scott's buddy pic-cum-espionage thriller shrewdly unites Robert Redford and Brad Pitt, pretty-boy box-office icons from two different generations. But its tense musical score embodies a gratifying sense of cross-cultural experimentation that seems as doggedly genre-expanding as it does dramatically tough. Young composer Harry Gregson-Williams (Shrek, The Replacement Killers, Antz, The Rock) employs haunting Eastern instrumental modalities, symphonic flourishes, and spare choral touches here but crucially weds them to driving, polyrhythmic percussion and pulsing techno club grooves. Continuing a contemporary scoring trend that largely eschews thematic melodies in favor of evocative atmospherics, the composer's studio-savvy fusion has conjured up a soundscape of surprisingly emotional twists and turns, but one that also seems to grow more determinedly electro-modern with each successive cut. This is that rare score that proves that pop trend can indeed inform classical tradition--and much to the benefit of both. --Jerry McCulley
