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The Specialist is about an ex-CIA explosives expert who is trying to help a beautiful woman avenge the death of her parents.

Pretty simple, eh?

Yes, and there are three things worth seeing this film for: The sex scene between Stallone and Stone, the bus fight involving Stallone and various gang members, and the always-charismatic James Woods.

That may sound a lot, but really this film was just an excuse for Stallone and Stone to flex their perfectly-toned bodies in front of one another, as they attempted to revive their deteriorating careers at the time of its release.

With little or no onscreen chemistry for a majority of the film, the sex scene is primarily the selling point here, so you might as well skip through the dribble and get to viewing the steamy romp in the hotel shower (if you're on the look out for some cheap, soft-core pornography, accompanied by a sleazy John Barry Score, that is).

The bus scene, in which I also speak, is really the only time the film threatens to give us some decent action, in what is a pretty drab affair overall. Ray Quick (Stallone) boards, sits and notices a standing pregnant lady, and being the nice guy that he is, offers then to give his seat up for her. Unfortunately, some shit-talking yuppie thinks it's clever to jump into the seat, giving a sly "F- You" out of the corner of his mouth, which prompts Sly to take off his shades, carefully hand them over to the lady for a few minutes, and begin busting some arse. Pretty cool.

Then there's James Woods, who always seems to impress. His character here is deliberately over the top, and injects a fair amount of humour into the picture. Easily, the best moments of the film come when his manic personality is at the forefront -- his misogynistic comments towards Stone are particularly amusing.

The Specialist is definitely not one of Stallone's best, but it's not quite one of his worst, either -- it's at least better than Assassins and Judge Dredd which came out the following year. Apart from aforementioned three elements, there's nothing really of note here; the film is probably best watched drunk and/or slightly pre-aroused.

(C) Andy Carrington, 2009.