Patrick Doyle provides the score to action thriller movie Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, the fifth in the movie franchise. This film reboots the series and is the first Jack Ryan film that isn't adapted from a Tom Clancy novel.

Doyle's score, I thought, was a little below par for the composer. It's a fine entry into the action thriller genre, but it lacks the usual Doyle finesse that makes the listener sit up and take notice. There's a lot of atmospheric thriller tracks on this album: the sort of usual cliched music you expect to hear in any standard movie of this genre, but very little in the way of original material.

The album contains 24 tracks (1 hr, 14 min) with personal highlights including 'Flying over Afghanistan' (which includes this score's only theme of any real merit); 'Second Great Depression' (a subtle, but interesting track); ' Faith of our Fathers' (which reminded me of James Newton Howard's score for Salt and Basil Poledouris's music for The Hunt for Red October); 'Get Out'; Jack and Aleksandr (which revisits the main them); 'Ryan, Mr. President' (which, although a bit full of pomp and ceremony it also has elements of some of Doyle's previous work: most notably Eragon); and 'Shadow Recruit' (an interesting modern track - which sounded like the theme tune to a spy show).

So, an interesting enough album, but not one that will set the world on fire.

7

Darren Rea