Review of The Specialist (1994) by Stuart K — 05 Sep 2012

From Peruvian director Luis Llosa, (Sniper (1993) and Anaconda (1997)), this is a by-the-numbers action film with a good cast for it's day, but little more. It was slagged off by the critics, but it was still lucky enough to find an audience.

It's all been done before, even though the script did the rounds of Hollywood for years before it was finally made, but it could have been a different film. Back in 1984, Captain Ray Quick (Sylvester Stallone) and Colonel Ned Trent (James Woods) are partners for the CIA specialising in explosives, but after the daughter of a South American drug dealer is killed, Quick and Trent's partnership ends.

10 years later in Miami, working as a freelance hitman, and he answers to requests put to him by May Munro (Sharon Stone), whose parents were killed years ago by crime kingpin Joe Leon (Rod Steiger) and his son Tomas (Eric Roberts).

She infiltrates herself into Leon's inner circle under an alias, but it's revealed that Ned Trent is part of Leon's gang, and he's going to join the police's bomb squad, but all of this is a ruse to coax Quick out of hiding so that Trent can extract a slow and fiendish revenge on him.

It's a silly thriller, but it gives Sly a chance to do action again, and even show a softer side too, even with Stone as a love interest. Before Llosa was signed to direct it, Mario Van Peebles and David Fincher were also considered, (imagine how it would have been with the latter??) But, despite the misgivings from the critics, it proved to be a big hit in late 1994.