The Specialist is a cheeseball action movie desperately trying to pass itself off as a serious erotic action drama. Released in the fall of 1994, it marked the end of Sly’s brief comeback that began with Cliffhanger in 1993, when audiences soundly rejected the Governator’s Last Action Hero in favor of Die Hard on a mountain, and the much better Demolition Man. Following the pretty good performance of this film, two duds in 1995, and Daylight in 1996, Stallone gave serious acting one last shot with the underrated Cop Land, before going into relative hibernation until 2006.

Well, okay, he did make some movies in the interim, but apart from Driven and his voice work in Antz, none of them really earned him much attention. And in the case of Driven, the attention came mainly from me looking at the trailer online and debating whether or not to waste my money. For the record, my decision was an emphatic “No, I’d rather see The Mummy Returns.”

Besides Stallone, the other big draw in the movie is Sharon Stone. Still a hot property in the wake of Basic Instinct, to say nothing of being just generally hot, she was a pretty big name at the time. So a star vehicle featuring both Stallone and Stone must have been very appealing, in theory.

Add in James Woods as the main villain, plus some hilariously awful supporting turns from Eric Roberts and Rod Steiger as Cuban gangsters (yes, you read that right, and it’s even worse than what you’re imagining), and you have the potential for a wonderfully cheesy good time. The operative word there is “potential”.

For some reason, this film was marketed as a more “serious” movie, even though I’m pretty certain anybody who’s a fan of either Sylvester Stallone or Sharon Stone doesn’t go to the movies for serious dramatics. Stallone’s fans go to see him kill a lot of things and be macho, and Stone’s fans go in the vain hope she’ll do another leg spreading scene like in Basic Instinct. To be fair, she does get naked in this film. On the downside, so does Sly.

Me? I’m just here for the cheese, of which there is a decent amount in this muddled, kind of laborious, yet enjoyable film. I give it 7 out of 10 vaguely motivated female leads. Let’s check it out.

We begin with the credits, complete with music from John Barry that sounds like stuff he never had the chance to throw into a James Bond film. Our director is Luis Llosa, whose only other film besides Agony Booth resident Anaconda that I’ve heard of is the Tom Berenger action flick Sniper. I remember that movie being not entirely awful, but nothing really worth writing home about, either. I’ll put it this way: it won’t be showing up on this site from me anytime soon. I’m not that desperate for material.

Another thing about the credits that amuses me is the cheesy blue glow around the title. Right off the bat, you can tell the filmmakers had a different sort of movie in mind than the marketing folks at Warner Brothers.

And yes, this movie is from 1994, not 1984.

By sheer coincidence, our film begins in Bogota, circa 1984. Ray Quick (Sly) and Ned Trent (James Woods) observe a bridge. Both men are CIA demolition experts, with Ned serving as the “trigger”, while Ray is the “rigger”. Ned keeps an eye out while Ray lines the bridge with explosives. As they wait a safe distance away, a drug lord, their target, approaches in a jeep.

Ray notices the man’s daughter is with him, and wants to abort the mission. But since this is the beginning of an action movie and his partner is James Woods, you can guess how well this goes over with Ned.

Ned watches with disdain as Ray frantically rushes to stop the impending deaths. You may be asking why Ray thinks he can disarm all the explosives in time, and the answer is that he’s being played by Sylvester Stallone and you just have to accept a certain amount of superhuman ability when dealing with the man’s movies.

Ray manages to defuse one of the bombs, but the truck sets off the second explosive as it goes over the bridge. And just before this, there’s the obligatory moment of pathos where the kid in the jeep locks eyes with Ray. Yes, the movie wants us to take it very seriously.

Naturally, there’s slow motion leaping galore from Sly, as he dives into the water to avoid the explosion. What can I say? It’s Stallone; he likes to run from exploding things. Everybody has their thing, I guess.

Upon making it to dry land, Ray is met by Ned, who pulls out a gun as Ray advances on him. Ned proceeds to kick the crap out of Ray for a bit, before Ray returns the favor. The fight ends with Ray as the victor, and based on later dialogue, we can only assume Ray testifies against Ned and gets him thrown out of the CIA, before resigning himself. To end the scene, we get a nice goofy face from Sly in close-up. Well, goofier than normal, anyway.

Cut to ten years later. We’re in Miami, and the credits resume, while the camera moves through an outdoor nightclub. An interesting credit that amuses me is “Suggested by The Specialist Novels by John Shirley”. I did a little research (yes, I actually research these things, as opposed to simply pulling stuff out of my ass) and found the film is based on a series of pulpy adventure novels from the ‘80s. I knew there was something cheesy about this goddamn film!

We pull back from the club to a payphone, where Ray appears, looking... Well, the same as he did in the prologue. You’d think they could have gone the “had a mustache ten years ago but is now clean shaven” route, but no. Instead, we get Sly, the same as always, though looking a little more droopy than usual as a way to show inner turmoil and deep feelings of guilt. Hey, it’s Stallone, not De Niro. The man’s emotional depth as an actor is basically a kiddy pool.

Ray uses a small computer to access a “Weekend Warrior” message board, and it would seem he’s been making a living by taking gun-for-hire jobs over the web. You know, because that’s totally different from killing people for the government. He’ll grumble out an explanation for this later, but it’s still dumb.

He finds a message with a phone number attached. Dialing it up, he’s connected with a sultry female voice that we’ll soon learn belongs to May Munro, Sharon Stone’s character. She asks if Ray has decided to accept her job offer. Evidently, she’s been badgering the guy for a while now to kill three men for her, which according to her will give her “a new life”.

Ray is reluctant, and he tries to dissuade her, but she’s insistent as hell. He turns down her offer to meet in person, saying, “I don’t meet, I don’t work in Miami, and I don’t take jobs like this.” He also proves to be a bit on the odd side as well, because it seems that even though he’s not interested in her job offer, he keeps calling her back because he likes her voice.

You know, in a better movie, this would lead to something interesting. But we’re in this one, so don’t get your hopes up in regards to where this is all going. About the only really original thing in this movie will prove to be the nature of the Stallone character. You see, he’s one of the few “bomber” characters in a film to be the good guy.

1994 was a banner year for movies about mad bombers. There were fantastic ones such as Speed, adequate ones such as Blown Away, and... Well, there was this movie, where the bomber is more morose than mad, and given what site you’re on and who’s currently writing about it, I think you can take it from there.