Movie Soundtrack Review: Black Sea

Ilan Eshkeri's dark and brooding score goes deep into the human psyche.

Review by Matt Cummings

Soundtrack music sets the emotional tone of a film, either adding to or taking away the effect which the director is trying to establish. It follows that many times, a good movie can get ruined by a bad score and a decent movie can vbe elevated by a good one. For Kevin Macdonald's Black Sea, Composer Ilan Eshkeri's dark and brooding score elevates the film by complimenting its desperate tone.

When the former submarine driver Robinson (Jude Law) loses his job at the company, he signs on with a shadowy investor and to liberate a German U-boat loaded with 4 tons of WWII-era gold. Seeking redemption and a final shot at respectability, Robinson hires a group of tough-minded men for his crew, including the psychotic Fraser (Ben Mendelsohn) and the newbie Tobin (Bobby Schofield). Although Robinson has promised his men an equal cut of the profits, greed and murder are never far behind, and soon the crew begins to crack, crippling the mission and putting their very lives at risk. Presented with a dark secret and facing a grim situation, Robinson and his men himself find themselves in a tightening noose of deadly rivalries, corporate intrigue, and a broken ship that could soon become their tomb.



Most of the offerings in this 23-track score are rather short, but they do a very effective job of telling their parts of the story. You don't always need long period pieces or even a memorable toe-tapping melody, just workable pieces that help tell the story for that particular part of the film. Eshkeri gets started with the wonderfully ethereal ambient Clean Out Your Desk, a dark piano melody when Jude Law's character gets fired at the beginning of the film. It's a bit sad but immediately sets the tone for the rest of the film. From here, we go through a number of set up pieces designed to set up more of the movie's tone: Mansion, I Need a Sub, The Plan, and Enter the Sub do just that, laying on atmospherics rather than melodies but also working to sell Robertson's plan and the desperate situation in which he and his men eventually find themselves.

Then we get to terrific Leaving Sebastapol, which finds itself into several tracks and probably doubles as the movie's theme. Led by violins and cellos and featuring a pulsing track to match the machines of the old sub, it reminds me of Hans Zimmer's music for The Dark Knight series. It's a little short, but you'll hear it several times on other tracks. From there, we're back to set ups including Fly By, the disturbing Fraser and Blackie, Aftermath, Drive Shaft, and Homemade Sonar, before hitting the longest track Sea Bed. It's 6:59 of dark ambient as several of the crew venture outside of the ship to find the U-Boat. We get buildup, then a smashing horror sequence around 4:00 that helps make that scene even better, along with a repeat of Sebastapol in deep cellos.

As the film begins to move to its final act, tracks like Gold, Hauling Back, Daniel Explains, Bring in the Gold, and Robinson and Fraser appear with short melodies or atmospherics of keyboards, pulsing strings, or pianos. Much like the 'ping' one might hear when searching their radar, Eshkeri pumps in similar tones here, like something hitting the ship and then echoing throughout our headphones. Perhaps my favorite track of the score is The Sub Starts Off, which starts off the now-familiar pounding strings combining with other strings to set up a nice build up before hitting the familiar theme around 1:07.

The last five tracks - Trench, Subsink, Gun, Escape, and Ascent - perform a final build up for the film's tragic ending. Here's it's more desperate tones, building in long tones before capping and starting over. Escape is interesting and both quite sad, as Robertson's crew partially realizes their fate, and the captain makes final preparations to send a couple of men to the surface. The violins here produce elegant exquisiteness, leaving Robertson with his ill-gotten gains as the ship takes on water. It's another 5-star track, as is Sacrifice. Starting with a beautiful piano piece and then moving to his trademark strings, it's the end of the line for Robertson and for the score, but what a way to finish. Then, it's Leaving Sebastapol once again, repeated several times and building along the way as the credits roll.

Throughout his score, Eshkeri delivers a bigger motive than the movie it's made for, which is never a bad thing. Here, we get to see what happens musically when men use their greed to turn on one another. But the score never forgets the beauty and darkness of the ocean, repeating elements of Zimmer's Interstellar, particularly in tracks like Ascent. His tracks take us to the depths of darkness by pounding home its engine-like nature and wrapping us up in a beautiful melody that makes it way throughout many of the tracks. Moreover, it captures the claustrophobic nature of the film as well as man's propensity for violence when money is involved. It's a soundtrack that's well suited to its environment, and one that does its job extremely well. Put it at the top of your Spotify or Amazon Music collection, and you'll find yourself adding it to your permanent collection.

Black Sea is playing in the theaters everywhere, and you can shop here for the soundtrack.

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