The Specialist starts as May Munro (Sharon Stone) contacts hired assassin Ray Quick (Sylvester Stallone) & ask's him to kill the three men who murdered her parents & the man who ordered it, being a helpful kind of chap Ray agrees. Things become complicated when Ray's old CIA buddy turned baddie Ned Trent (James Woods) show's up wanting to kill Ray because he hurt Ned's feelings back in 1984 & that's it basically.<br /><br />This Peruvian American co-production was directed by Luis Llosa which is a name I instantly recognised as this is the guy responsible for one of the worst big budget horror flicks of the 90's, namely Anaconda (1997) which is a film I hate with a passion & guess what? I also hate The Specialist as well, luckily after both this & Anaconda tanked at the box-office & were critically torn to pieces Llosa hasn't been allowed to make an American film since, there is a god after all... Anyway, the script by Alexandra Seros which takes itself far too seriously was 'suggested' by the Specialist novels by John Shirley & is terrible, for a start there's barely any action in it & the scene set on the bus where Stallone beats up some thugs is so pointless & utterly irrelevant to the plot it sticks out like a sore thumb & smacks of a re-shoot in an attempt to up the action quota. In fact all The Specialist offers in terms of action are a couple of exploding vehicles & some large explosions at the end otherwise this is one of the least action packed big budget Stallone flicks I've ever seen. The character's are awful, the dialogue is awful, the story is utterly predictable & pedestrian with virtually no reason given why Ned wants to kill Ray at this point or no reason why May's parents were originally murdered & at nearly two hours long it's a real chore to sit through. I really, really dislike The Specialist & would call it more of a thriller than an action flick although I'm betting the trailer makes it look like it's full of explosions & action scenes but just don't be fooled because it isn't.<br /><br />Director Llosa is an awful director & it's no surprise no respectable studio has let him go anywhere near a film camera since this & Anaconda, there are so many scenes in The Specialist which are played straight & meant to generate tension & excitement but are so poorly & ineptly handled they come across as laughable. The opening scene where trained assassin Stallone suddenly develops a conscience is stupid, the scene in the police station where James Woods threatens an entire room of cops with a homemade bomb is ridiculous as the cops would have shot his head off, the sex scene between Stallone & Stone is one of the most unerotic & frankly ugly pieces of film I've ever seen & James Woods losing it in front of all those cops & telling them all to shut up is just hilarious & his character comes across like some sort of clown rather than the hard as nails bad guy he should have. Apart from when Stallone beats some punks up on a bus there's no fights, there's no shooting, there's no car chases & the only explosions worth mentioning are right at the very end if you can make it that far.<br /><br />With a supposed budget of about $45,000,000 The Specialist was a well funded film although I struggled to see where the money went although Stallone was paid $15,000,000 to be in it so I guess there's my answer. Apparently Steven Seagal only wanted $9,000,000 to star & direct so why didn't Warner Bros. go with him? Well they didn't want to pay him that much so they went to Stallone who only wanted an extra $6,000,000 anyway... To be honest this feels like a low budget straight to video Seagal flick, it really does. The acting is terrible from all involved, Stallone is even more wooden than usual, Stone is just plain awful & not particularly good looking in this while the usually superb James Woods is left trying to make the best of a terrible script & a rubbish character but even he ends up looking somewhat embarrassed.<br /><br />The Specialist is a terrible film which I hated when I saw it back in the 90's & still hate now when I saw it but a few hours ago, there's nothing much more I can say other than I personally think it's complete rubbish except some decent explosions at the end which aren't worth waiting for.