Monday, February 29, 2016

The Specialist (1994)

Director: Luis Llosa

Writers: John Shirley, Alexandra Seros

Composer: John Barry

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Sharon Stone, James Woods, Rod Steiger, Eric Roberts, Mario Ernesto Snachez, Tony Munafo, Marcela Cardona, Brent Sexton

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Killing is his profession. Revenge is her goal. Together they take on the battle against the underworld of Miami.

Plot: A woman entices a bomb expert she's involved with into destroying the mafia that killed her family.



My rating:  5.5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

"You've got some 'splosions to do, Lucy!"  The best parts about this picture are the numerous explosions and John Barry's moody score.  That's it.  The dialogue is often laughable which makes this even more of a mess when you add the actors.  Rod Steiger is at his best when he underplays a role.  But in this picture, he's so over the top he's getting frequent flyer miles.  He's not supposed to be funny but he's playing a cartoon.  Eric Roberts plays a slimeball almost too well.  James Woods over plays it sometimes but at others he's fun.  Sharon Stone has some really bad moments that make you wonder about her ability.  Stallone is taking it too seriously, especially when you compare his performance to everybody else's.  The performances don't work together so you're stuck with a film that doesn't feel like it really knows what it wants to be.  I guess that could be fun on some level but just the scenes with Stone and Stallone alone together are really rough.  Maybe they lacked chemistry.  Beats me.  They did struggle to make the silly dialogue less ridiculous.  Lovely score, though.  If you ever wondered what it would look like to see Stone and Stallone naked in a shower for an extended period of time (with dialogue), this is your movie.

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