The Specialist

The Specialist

This Crown International Picture is unusual in that unlike most of its drive in movies, this effort takes itself much more seriously than usual. Oh, there are a few humorous moments (unintentional as well as intentional), and the movie does deliver a few scenes that display T and A, but otherwise the movie is surprisingly sober. I don't immediately object to the fact the filmmakers took this project more seriously, but I object to the way they depicted this serious story. The main problem is that the movie moves much too slow for its own good; a little jolt would have liven things up considerably. Also, Adam West gives a pretty poor performance, and his character gets much of the focus. The Lou Rawles-sung title song is great, and the movie has an unexpected ending, but more likely than not you'll drift to sleep long before the end credits start unfolding.

THE SPECIALIST is an oddball and typically unsatisfying production put out by Crown International Pictures, a studio known for buying up and putting out all kind of independent junk in the 1960s and 1970s. This one's a slow-paced courtroom drama in which a case is launched against the corrupt owner of a water company trying to destroy a local landmark. It plays out as a skin flick at times, although it's quite tame by genre standards. Most amusing of all is the casting of Adam West as the heroic lawyer; he gives the most interesting performance here but the rest is rather stodgy.

"The Specialist" is the one movie (out of twelve) that made me buy the Mill Creek DVD pack called "Rare Cult Cinema", mostly based on Leonard Maltin's review, in which he calls Ahna Capri "well-cast as the female version of the usual macho killer-for-hire". He gets the "well-cast" part right, but the rest seems to me like a misrepresentation - Capri does NOT play a killer of any sort, she plays a professional seducer. Although she bares her stupendously great breasts only twice, those 10 seconds (out of a 90-minute movie, mind you!) are something to see indeed. Other things to watch for are a rather unusual killing, and the typically 1970's pessimistic ending. But Avedis' mostly unimaginative, TV-style direction (with an emphasis on long talky scenes) does not allow "The Specialist" to ever become the cult treasure it could have been. ** out of 4.

The Specialist deserves a slightly better than average score (when comparing against other B Movies) because I really enjoyed the first hour. The story was kind of irrelevant although it was half-interesting. What I enjoyed about it was its overall demeanour. I wasn't expecting much but ended up liking it pretty much from the start because it was pretty funny and had some likable characters. I really liked Anha Capri, I thought she gave a good, sultry yet tongue in cheek performance and her scenes with Harvey Jason were funny. This is definitely a film of two halves though and for every decent, tongue in cheek character and performance, there is a serious and badly acted character. Overall, I enjoyed the first hour but the final 30 minutes were completely out of sync with the rest of the film as lost all of its humour and interesting characters and became really boring.

This was really a surprise for me. Knowing this was made by Crown International in the 70's, I expected a fun, sleazy good time. Instead I found this to be a stiff, talky courtroom piece, with little going for it other than Adam West uttering a couple of vulgarities and a fun title tune by Lou Rawls. I'd really like to see how this film was sold to audiences at the time, as it plays like an R-rated episode of MATLOCK. How did Crown International get theaters who were used to their mix of vans, cheerleaders and beach babes, to show a semi-serious drama about jury tampering? Beware....