The Specialist

There should be a law against casting Sylvester Stallone, Sharon Stone and James Woods in the same movie. There isn’t, of course, though if our state representatives see The Specialist, legislation may be pending. In the meantime, you can wallow in the thunderous thespian talents of the terrible threesome without fear of being arrested. And if you really think that any of these people can act, then The Specialist is just the kick you need.

Loosely based on a series of macho novels that are written for the kind of guys who move their lips when they read and subscribe to Soldier of Fortune magazine, The Specialist tries for a softer and more sensitive brand of machismo. Its half-baked storyline is about an explosive vendetta, but large chunks of the movie consist of Stallone and Stone panting over telephones at each other. This film is the closest you can get to phone sex without dialing a 1-900 number. Granted, most of their chatter is about bumping off drug lords, but the topic gets them so hot and steamy.

Actually, The Specialist plays like an oddball sex triangle, with Woods as the third angle. He and Sly start out together as commandos working for the CIA. Their job is blowing up kingpins of the cocaine trade, and their high-tech expertise is evenly split between demolition and detonation. Or, as Woods repeatedly puts it: he’s the trigger and Stallone’s the rigger. Does this sound like sex talk, or what?

The pair ends their personal association, however, when Woods insists upon killing a kid. Years pass, during which Sly broods a lot. He’s tired of all the violence, though he doesn’t mind taking the occasional job as a hitman.

Which is how he meets Stone. She’s a client with two distinct peccadilloes. The first is that she wants Sly to get the mobsters who killed her parents. The other is her inability to use a phone while wearing clothes (who knows, maybe she has an allergy).

Unbeknownst to Stallone (but beknownst to us), Woods is working as the mob’s security chief. When flaming thugs start shooting through the air like Roman candles, Woods gets all hot and twitchy about seeing his old amigo again. You can tell that this is one trigger who misses his rigger.

The Specialist is loaded with atmosphere, but moves at a snail’s pace. It has some major booms, but you never feel the earth move. You may want to smoke a cigarette after seeing it, though.

Demolition Man:

Film Theorists, please note: Sylvestor Stallone has become a deconstructionist. Of course, Sly probably thinks that the word “deconstruction” refers to de crew at de work site around de corner. Actually, that’s not such a bad definition. It fits his newest film like a fist in a chain-mail glove.

Demolition Man is wildly violent, irredeemably awful and occasionally crazy enough to be almost watchable – especially if you are half warped and laugh at Jeffery Dahmer jokes. It’s also the oddest movie ever to be partly based on the novel Brave New World. I am not kidding. One of the main characters is even named Lenina Huxley. You just know that one of the writers of this sucker is an English Lit. major gone bad.

The flick opens as a parody of Blade Runner. It’s 1996, and the Hollywood sign is in flames above a riot-torn Los Angeles. Stallone is Sgt. John Spartan of the LAPD, the kind of cop who blows up whole sections of the city just to catch one man. Which he does while arresting Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes with blond hair). Phoenix is the self-proclaimed king of South Central L.A. and a full-time homicidal maniac. This combo insures a double-digit body count before the opening credits.

Spartan catches his man, but allows 30-some hostages to get wasted. As a result, both he and Phoenix are sentenced to serve some time frozen in a cryogenic prison. Fast skip to 2032, where a defrosted Phoenix stages a bloody escape. The 21st century cops of the San Angeles Police Force have no experience with dangerous criminals, so guess who they pop loose from the fridge?

It’s at this point Demolition Man tries to be a satire. We learn that after the great quake – and the administration of President Schwarzenegger – Los Angeles merged with Santa Monica. To prevent further war and violence, the entire society was reconditioned by its patron savior, Raymond Cocteau, who created a politically correct haven that outlawed all forms of bad language, physical contact and aggressive behavior. It’s a perfect new order that’s vaguely threatened by a pesky pack of subterranean civil libertarians. In other words, the whole place is ripe for a head-bashing fest.

This is not the dumbest flick that Stallone ever starred in. But, it’s close, real close. (Actually, someone like Roger Corman could have milked it into a great drive-in piece – it’s incoherent enough to be post-modernist, and its ironies are piled high.)

Too bad Demolition Man isn’t worse – it’s almost bad enough to be good.