Soundtrack Review: Max Payne (2008)

Posted by Jorn Tillnes

December 15, 2008

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112508 0805 soundtrackr13 Soundtrack Review: Max Payne (2008) This is a review of the motion picture score for Max Payne by Marco Beltrami.

“It’s dark and gritty and I feel it connects on more than just a superficial level but touches your soul”

Max Payne is well known in the game community as there has been some excellent games coming out in that series. It’s a very dark and moody kind of game, gritty and dirty, full of nightmares and troubles for the troubled Max Payne. Mark Wahlberg plays Max Payne in the recent movie and although most people disliked it, I kind of liked it. It had a very dark and disturbing feel to it and you could feel Max’s suffering because of everything that has been happening to him. This is something Marco Beltrami had to get across in his score for the movie. I recently acquired the Max Payne video game scores out of curiosity and if you expect music that resembles that you will probably be disappointed, although dark it may be, it doesn’t have the depth that the video game scores had. The first score was by Peter Hajba and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne was by Kartsy Hatakka & Kimmo Kajasto. How does Marco Beltrami fare in the score to this movie adaption of the famous video game?

Track List

Max Attacks
Investigation
Payneful Piano
Colvin Quivers
Dethlab
Storming The Office
No Respects For You
Lupino Spreads His Wings
Max Returns Home
Factoring Max
Window Payne
Dark Heaven
Vote For Dennis
Bb’s Maxim
Max Marches On
Heaven To The Max
Topless Fanfare

Video Game vs. Movie

I guess some comparison to the video game scores won’t be too unfair or perhaps it will. Nevertheless I feel it needs to be mentioned. The Max Payne theme itself has been changed and modified for the movie and I hope it goes well in the Max Payne community. If they are truly passionate about the score, then I can see some angry faces after Beltrami’s butchering of the main theme and others. The film score is dark like the video game scores, but the similarity ends there with a few exceptions. The film uses more dark electronic beats, almost retro at times, dark and gritty, while the video game uses strings for its thematic approaches and is not afraid to go heavy on the guitar. There are some cues that might seem similar, but Max Payne purists would disagree. It’s interesting that the main theme used in both video games is not present on this film score, a very bold move by Mr. Beltrami.

I will not directly compare it against the video game scores and let the film score speak for itself because if you are able to do that, you will notice depth within the darkness of this score. I mention Beltrami a lot, but it’s in collaboration with Buck Sanders. I don’t know who composed which cue, but it doesn’t matter. Let the music speak! It starts off with a twisted nervy violin and goes on to become a theme for the film with it’s dark and gritty electronic pulse beats which drives the score. I feel it starts off great with a powerful cue that introduces us to the main character in bold fashion. In the midst of electronic beats are some very dark soundscapes, to fill the gaps as we can already hear in the next cues “Investigation” and “Payneful Piano”. Speaking of piano, there is a theme here that is being played throughout, mostly on piano, but also using strings and horns which is not a bad theme. The theme is all Beltrami & Sanders creation as it is different from the video game, not in the way it feels, but the way it sounds.

Darkness

The darkness and heaviness of the main character and the dark world in which Max Payne inhabits comes across in Beltrami & Sanders transformation of the world of Max Payne. You have to get used to and like their approach to the score otherwise you will feel as lost as the main character himself. The electronic beats are introduced again in “Colvin Quivers”, albeit slightly different, more darker this time. I have to tell you something strange, which might not come as a surprise to many of you, but to me this is a first. When I first got this score and listened to it, I just didn’t get the feel of it, didn’t really like it at all. I left it for a couple of days and then I listened to it again, and then it hit me. This is actually a very good score, and the feeling was vastly different second time around and it stayed when listening to it for the third and fourth time. So if you listen to it and don’t like it at first, try listening to it again after a couple of days and see what happens.

There are only a couple of mediocre cues on the Max Payne soundtrack, and those are “Dethlab”, “BBs Maxim”, “Max Marches on” and “Topless Fanfare”. That’s quite a feat considering there are 17 tracks in all. The total playtime is about 45 minutes which is a bit short, but for the soundtrack collectors out there, there is a complete version with 35 minutes of more music. I have been talking about the darkness and the electronic beats, but that’s usually for the action cues. There are some great emotional cues here which help us feel the loss and pain of Max’s very existence, like in the cue “No Respects for You” which is a soulful, reflecting song in which the strings and harp dominates. “Max Returns Home” is a similar cue in which he returns home to his haunted home where his family was slaughtered. It takes on a dark turn quickly and deservedly so. It’s ironic that the best cue on the Max Payne film score is an emotional one without any form of electronic sound, but a serenade of strings and harp. The cue is called “Heaven To The Max” and puts us right into Max’s head as he struggles with his thoughts of his lost world. Similar is the cue “Dark Heaven” which is less joyful than “Heaven To The Max”, but goes to show Beltrami & Sanders ability to create emotional cues which touches you.

The Bad Guy

What about the bad guy? Well there is one by the name of Lupino. He was not bad at some point, but the mastermind behind it all created a monster. In “Lupino Spreads His Wings” we hear for the first time some guitar mixed on the electronic pulse beat theme. It is clear that this is the theme for the bad guys and it’s quite good. The real bad guy hasn’t got a defining theme, but he doesn’t need it. This film is about Max Payne and his darkness, which is bad enough (in a good way). Critics would say that for an action movie it lacks action cues, but it really does have a lot of action cues, just not in the same style as Zimmer or Powell. This movie wouldn’t have worked with such cues anyway and I’m happy with what Marco Beltrami & Buck Sanders have come up with.

Conclusion

Love it or hate it, this has been a great year for Marco Beltrami. First came The Eye which I thought was very good, then Max Payne which fills me with Joy. I was one of the few who didn’t rave about “3:10 To Yuma” last year and “Live Free or Die Hard” left much to be desired. With Max Payne he has returned to his best form, perhaps the best form of his life. It’s dark and gritty and I feel it connects on more than just a superficial level but touches your soul.

112508 0805 soundtrackr21 Soundtrack Review: Max Payne (2008)