For those of you wondering what that great blues number is at the beginning of this movie, it's a song called "Hard Workin' Man" performed by Captain Beefheart. This song was originally written for a movie called "Blue Collar" and can be found on the new Beefheart anthology "The Dust Blows Forward" from Rhino. Pretty entertaining movie if you're into lawyers and such.

Too bad they didn't bother to put any of the good blues cuts from it on the soundtrack. Oh well, that's showbiz. .

. Why, i wonder, would Danny Elfman (who produced this soundtrack) put a song by another artist ("Hard Working Man") on his score album??

Buy the cd if you want to hear orchestral music composed FOR the film -- the songs can be found on pre-existing albums...

. As for the score = There are two distinct sides to this score -- Elfman uses synth and an ethereal choir to convey the mechanical, coldly efficient world of the attorneys..

..but when things get messy, and the main character begins to care PERSONALLY in the case, Elfman then drops the synth and alows the orchestra to take over.

These moments are subtle and gorgeous...

In BOTH cases (synth and orchestra passages) you will hear subtle nods to Gospel music...

a clever reference to the main character's moral dilemma's, and the church-like nature of the courtroom. The theme of water, as both cleansing and distructive (the poisoned children), is represented by glass-instruments. Really, this score is EXCELLENT.

..and it gets better with every listen.

Anyone who has followed the career of composer Danny Elfman, with any degree of regularity, will tell you that that he not known for writing that many film scores for dramatic films. Most of his offerings come with fantasy or horror elements attached to them and he goes from there. A Civil Action tells a sometimes gut wrenching dramatic story, but after hearing Elfman's score away from the film itself, I was surprised how little of it sounded very dramatic.

While I thought the music complimented the film well, as I watched it, it lost that impact when separated from the film as a soundtrack. The first half of the CD sounded almost playful, like Elfman's score for the dark comedy To Die For, even matching tempo and certain textures of that score. It's funny how you sometimes don't notice something that should be fairly obvious The second half of the CD is when the score gets more befitting of the subject matter and becomes a better score.

Two standout cues from the second half are "Why" and "Going Down" Despite the flaws I mentioned, If you like the work of Danny Elfman, the Civil Action soundtrack is still recommended-as a contrast to all of that fine fantasy stuff he does.