The Specialist (1994) review: Isn’t That Special

Bombs and bro butts galore in The Specialist. In this oft-forgotten Stallone film, Sly plays Ray, a  a specialist in the category of making big booms. He is able to make unique and untraceable bombs to take out the bad guys (his bombs are “more accurate than guns and with less collateral damage”) sounds good so far. His partner, Ned (James Woods), is also a specialist but his bomb-making skills are a little less special. He’ll blow up bad guys, good guys, innocent little girls, whoever! When May (Sharon Stone) hires Ray to kill the guys who killed her parents, it puts these two ex-partners on a collision course to boomtown.

Ray is one of those stoic action heroes in the vein of The Transporter. His name starts with a “The” and he’s got a very particular set of rules he abides by. Ray lays out these rules to May when he agrees to take the job of killing the guys who killed her parents:

Rule #1: Don’t go near them again (May was sleeping with one of the bad guys to get close enough to kill them herself before she hired Ray).
Rule #2: Don’t contact me, I’ll contact you.
Rule #3: IF THIS IS A SETUP, I’LL KILL YOU.

Pretty specific.

AND YET, when May breaks Rule #3 (which has a pre-stated penalty of death), he forgives her and they drive off into the sunset together. Ray! Come on, man! What good are rules if you don’t follow through!

Another thing I didn’t dig about The Specialist is that all of the men except Stallone are big jerks to women. May gets abused and controlled all throughout the movie, and it all boils down to bad guy dick-measuring contests. I know we aren’t supposed to like the villains, but May never gets her justice for all the crap she went through. She punches Ned in the face once, and that’s pretty much it. Admittedly, given the era this film came from it’s no surprise that Sharon Stone got relegated to the role of sexy punching bag, but it still sucks to see.

I’m not crazy about the Specialist, but it does deliver on the unique promise of lots and lots of explosions. There are only maybe two fistfights, and the rest is bombs, bombs, bombs! There’s also a lot of butts. Well, mostly one butt, singluar: Sly’s. This movie came out during the era where Sly was at his most powerful and most bigheaded- How Did This Get Made reports that he tried to get the author of the book The Specialist is based on to list him, Sylvester Stallone, as the author because it would sell more copies, and when author John Shirley refused Sly got hella pissed. It’s no surprise, then, that Sly wanted the camera ogling his muscular body far more than that of his co-star.

The Specialist also got nominated for some awards: Razzie Awards including Worst Picture, Worst Actor: Stallone, Worst Supporting Actor: Rod Steiger, and they won Worst Actress: Sharon Stone, and Worst Screen couple for Stone and Stallone. Magnificent!

Honestly, even though this did well at the box office it ranks towards the bottom of the Sly movies for me. You and your areas would spend your time more wisely by spending the day farting in an enclosed area to see how long you can take it before you have to open the door.

Time until initial action starts: ~3 minute

Time until real action starts: ~ 19 minutes

Big Bad Baddies: Miami drug dealers

Best Line: Ned states this about Ray: “They’d better be F’ing magicians because this is one very impressive man!”

Best Kill: One of the no-name drug dealers is in his car and a bomb blows up, sending him somersaulting through the air while strapped to his seat and on fire.

Best Explosion: At the end a whole warehouse blows up.

Action Rating: 1 ½ flaming mob bosses exploding out of their car while still strapped to their seat, out of 5

This is the Action Flick Chick, and you’ve just been kicked in the ass!