Details
Movie Description
A Miami woman whose family has been "erased" by a nefarious crime lord hires an ex-CIA explosives expert to gain revenge. His job is made more difficult when he falls for his beautiful client, and when his target hires his equally skilled ex-partner in this tense action-drama.
Synopsis
The incendiary combination of Sharon Stone and Sylvester Stallone add to the fireworks of this film; a tale of revenge and murder set against the neon backdrop of Miami.
As a child, May Munro watched in horror as her family was brutally murdered in a contract hit by three Cuban gangsters, led by the reptilian Tomas Leon. Now an adult, she is hell-bent on avenging her parents' death. She tries to hire Ray Quick, a bomb specialist with a noble heart and "a past" to do the job. This leads to complications as Quick must confront his ex-CIA partner, the malicious Ned Trent, who now works for the Leon family. But as Quick and Munro work together to settle their respective scores, explosions of a different sort begin to ignite.
Film Notes
DVD Features:
Region 1
Snap Case
Pan & Scan - 1.33
Widescreen
Audio:
Dolby Digital 5.1 - English
Dolby Digital Surround - Spanish
Dolby Digital Surround - French
Additional Release Material:
Trailers - 1.Theatrical Trailer
Interactive Features:
Interactive Menus
Scene Access
Text/Photo Galleries:
Production Notes
Rated BBFC 15 by the British Board of Film Classification.
Shot in Technicolor.
Ricou Browning was the marine coordinator.
Copyright 1994 Warner Bros.
Industry Reviews
"The Specialist," starring the sibilant Sylvester Stallone and Sharon Stone, is the story of two wounded souls, one seeking revenge, the other seeking redemption. Stallone, as a former demolitions expert for the CIA, leaves the Agency when a covert mission kills a little girl, sparking a bitter feud with his psychotic partner, the cracked and crackling James Woods. In a nice bit of script symmetry, Stone is the only survivor of a mob hit in which, as a little girl, she witnessed her parents' brutal murder.
She hires Stallone to get the bad guys who killed her parents. Stallone agrees, as though taking the job will somehow appease the ghost of the little girl that haunts him. The beautiful Stone baits the trap as Stallone sets about eliminating a powerful Miami Mob family. The mob hires Woods to eliminate Stallone.
"The Specialist" feels like a comic book adapted for the screen, full of colorful arch-villains (James Woods, Rod Steiger and Eric Roberts, who steal the show from the pricey stars), good-looking frames, lines pruned to fit dialogue bubbles, and macho plot holes the size of C4 blasts. With gleaming production values reminiscent of James Bond movies, "The Specialist"'s settings are picturesque, the violence spiked with humor, the clothes smashing, the cars cool and the blow-ups, well, real good.
Strangely enough, the biggest failure of the film is the much-touted Stone/Stallone sex scene in the shower. Carefully avoiding ratings problems and any appearance of actually having sex, the two stripped-down thespians sidewind on top of each other like lethargic iguanas in a pet shop.
James Woods, as a joyously vengeance-crazed villain, gets the film's biggest laughs with at least one classic (and apparently ad-libbed) throwaway line. Rod Steiger paints his most controlled and precise portrait in years as the head of the Latino mob. Eric Roberts is Eric Roberts.
While "The Specialist" is nothing special, it's not a bomb. At ...
Fahy
Quotations
"The government taught him to kill. Now, he's using his skills to help one woman seek revenge against the Miami underworld." -- marketing line for the film
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