Christophe Beck's score for Good Kill is released through Lakeshore Records. After fighting the Taliban. For 12 hours a day, Tommy goes home to the suburbs to feud with his wife and kids for the other 12. Set during the greatest escalation of drone strikes, it’s about the moral conflicts and dilemmas of using this new technology. But it’s very much a personal story. Tommy is becoming a casualty of a war he’s fighting from half a world away, all while in absolutely no danger. He is a pilot suffering from shell shock and grieving the death of those actually flying, while also feeling guilty that he’s so far away from the shells. He is becoming disconnected from real life, relating more to the targets he’s watching, and their families, than his own family. Most importantly, he is starting to question the mission. Is he creating more terrorists than he’s killing? Is he now engaged in a war without end...?

The score for Good Kill was a welcome surprise. Given the movie's subject matter, I wasn't expecting so many intricate and beautiful themes. While there are a lot of atmospheric background tracks, somehow Christophe Beck makes them sound a lot more engaging and, in places, beautiful then they should be. The most obvious example is 'Double-Tap' which goes nowhere, but somehow manages to convey a lot of depth. In places it reminded me of a stripped down version of Michael Kamen's score for the Bond film Licence to Kill.

The album contains 17 tracks (40 min, 09 sec) of mellow, well constructed themes that build well to deliver a score that is far greater than its parts. In addition, it's an album that will grow on you the more times you listen to it.

8

Darren Rea