Soundtrack Review: American Gangster by Marc Streitenfeld (2008)

Posted by Soundtrack Geek

February 26, 2008

american gangster

This is a review of the motion picture score for American Gangster by Marc Streitenfeld. Release date: February 19^th 2008.

Just to make it absolutely clear, this is not a review of the soundtrack, but the score to this great movie. Marc Streitenfeld is a fairly new composer, and before American Gangster, the only movie he has scored for is A Good Year. What is the connection between Marc Streitenfeld and Russell Crowe I wonder? First, Marc Streitenfeld scores for A Good year in 2006 starring Russell Crowe, the he scores for American Gangster in 2007 starring Russell Crowe, and he will score for the Ridley Scott movie Body of Lies in 2008 starring, yes you guessed it, Russell Crowe. Even though they might be linked in some way, this German composer has really made a name for himself with American Gangster and was nominated for Best Score at BAFTA. This is the track list for American Gangster:

Images
Frank Lucas
Hundred Percent Pure
On Fire
Arrival
Suspects
Caskets
Raid
Morgue
Chinchilla Coat
American Gangster

The movie was about 2.5 hours long, so I wonder why the score only contains 11 tracks and a total playtime of 29:06. That is very disappointing. The promo score only had 10 tracks and was missing “American Gangster” which is 7:03. The score itself is very dark, and in many ways feel like the gangster version of 3:10 to Yuma, but with much less variety. Marc Streitenfeld uses the skewed guitar a lot, including backwards, almost like the score to Déjà vu by Harry Gregson-Williams.

It’s a good score while it lasts, but if you don’t like the main theme, you will not like this. All tracks feels a bit like the same track all over again and the 11^th track “American Gangster” is like a “best of” where it uses elements from tracks 1-10. I think the score is above average, but the length of it is disappointing, and while it is original for a movie of this kind, it’s extremely repetitive in the score itself. Listen to American Gangster by Marc Streitenfeld below:

http://soundtrackgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/amga.flv

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