A disappointingly pedestrian and predictable thriller score from
James Newton Howard,
Just Cause further suffers from Varese Sarabande's ill-informed decision to sequence the music out of chronological order, frontloading the disc with the explosive action themes that don't appear on screen until the film's climax. Writing for orchestra and electronics,
Howard focuses as much on the film's psychological gamesmanship as on its physical action, composing a series of quasi-mystical themes that are more about function than form. The melodies are sorely lacking in substance, and no amount of brass and string eruptions can make a difference. ~ Jason Ankeny