MOVIE MUSIC UK

THROWBACK THIRTY

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

The Specialist is an action-thriller film starring Sylvester Stallone and Sharon Stone. The story follows Ray Quick (Stallone), a former CIA explosives expert turned freelance hitman, who is approached by May Munro (Stone), a woman seeking revenge against the powerful Miami crime family responsible for the murder of her parents; the family boss Joe Leon (Rod Steiger), and his son Tomas (Eric Roberts), were directly involved in the killings. Ray agrees to take the job, and begins a steamy relationship with the femme fatale May, but as soon as Ray starts targeting members of the Leon family he finds himself at odds with Ned Trent (James Woods), a former CIA colleague, who is now a security expert working for the Leon family.

The film was part of the wave of 1990s action films that sought to capitalize on the success of other high-octane thrillers and the star power of leading actors like Stallone. It is loosely based on a series of novels by John Shirley, though the adaptation veered away from much of the source material. The script, eventually credited to Alexandra Seros, went through multiple revisions to tailor it to Stallone’s strengths as an action star, changing the espionage-like feel of the original story into something that leaned more heavily into explosive action. The film was directed by Peruvian filmmaker Luis Llosa, who brought a stylized, somewhat over-the-top aesthetic, with a strong emphasis on the use of explosions and pyrotechnics as storytelling elements. However, the production faced challenges, driven by numerous creative disagreements between the stars and director Llosa, mostly the fact that Stallone reportedly wanted more creative control than Llosa would give him. Not only that, the sexy scenes between Stallone and Stone also became a focus of media attention during production, with reports from the set stating that the scenes were uncomfortable due to their lack of chemistry.

Despite its star-studded cast and high-profile marketing, The Specialist received mixed to negative reviews from critics, who found the plot weak and overly reliant on clichés. Mainstream audiences were more receptive, though, and it became a box office hit, grossing over $170 million worldwide on a budget of about $45 million. Personally, I found the film to be disappointing, with action scenes that felt overblown, romantic elements that felt forced, and a confusing and repetitive plot. Capping it off was Rod Steiger’s truly bonkers performance as Joe Leon, who seemed to want to channel Marlon Brando’s Godfather, but did it as if he had never seen humans talk or move before.

The score for The Specialist was by composer John Barry, and was his only score of 1994. Despite the fact that the film had a significant espionage thriller plot, and despite the fact that he had significant experience of that genre through his iconic James Bond scores, Barry was actually brought onto the project by the producers to elevate the film’s emotional and romantic elements, and to add a more seductive, steamy tone to the scenes between the leads, possibly to force chemistry onto a relationship which didn’t actually have much. As such, Barry’s score for The Specialist leans heavily into the sultry and atmospheric jazz-inflected style that was present in scores like Body Heat, Hammett, Jagged Edge, and the little-seen Ruby Cairo which he had written two years previously.

The central idea is a love theme, subtitled “Did You Call Me,” which Barry used to bring a level of sophistication and romanticism to a film that was otherwise filled with action set pieces. The theme is based around an elegant piano performance by Mike Lang, and a moody saxophone performed by Ronny Lang (no relation), backed by plucked bass, brushed snares, and velvety strings. Ronny Lang played the iconic sax melodic line in Bernard Herrmann’s score for the movie Taxi Driver in 1976, and you can often hear similarities between the two scores in the performances here. The first performance of the ‘Did You Call Me’ theme appears in “May Dances With Tomas,” and it then appears prominently in later cues like “Ray Covers May, “May’s Room,” “Let’s See That Beautiful Face,” and “You Go In and Get Him”. Fans of Barry’s languid and laid-back jazz style will absolutely adore what he did here, and as I am one of those people, I certainly do.

The other main theme appears to be a theme for Ray himself, a sort of lonely jazz theme that characterizes Ray as an outsider who plays by his own rules and who has a slightly broken and downbeat personality. It appears for the first time towards the end of “Bogota 1984” on stern-sounding strings, but then becomes much more prominent as the score progresses, receiving notable statements in “The Specialist in Miami,” as a haunting trumpet solo in “May Finds Ray at the Cemetery,” and then in “After Tomas,” “Ray’s Place,” “The Parking Lot Bomb,” the imposing “The Death of Tomas,” and the melodramatic “May Meets Joe/I’m Not A Woman You Can Trust,” among many others. Barry changes the orchestration of the piece constantly, and sometimes deconstructs the theme down to just its basic chords, but for the most part the elegance of the long-lined melody remains true in all its forms; it’s just lovely. Many of Barry’s late-career scores – including The Scarlet Letter, Swept from the Sea, and Enigma – have an overarching sound that is similar to this theme, and fans of those works will undoubtedly like this one too.

Weaving in and around all this sensuality are a handful of action and suspense cues, most notably the “Main Title,” and then cues like “Bogota 1984,” “The First Bomb,” “Explosive Trent,” “Closing In on Ray,” and the throbbing “There Goes The Hotel Room/The Fight”. The more action-focused cues are trademark Barry in terms of their underlying rhythms and instrumental makeup, mostly brass pulses, string sustains, and relentless snare drum riffs that create a sense of tension and anxiety rather than rip-snorting energy. A lot of the action music clearly has Barry’s 1970s and 80s Bond scores as its inspiration, notably Moonraker, Octopussy, A View to a Kill, and The Living Daylights, but I also noted some similarities to the more intense Pawneee music from Dances With Wolves.

Meanwhile, the suspense cues make significant use of ticking woodblocks and various rattles and shakers, underpinned with slow-moving string figures, creating a sense of nervous tension that is at times quite palpable. The score’s standout cue in this regard is undoubtedly “Ray Meets May At Her Funeral,” in which Barry augments his thematic material with some tense and dissonant choral textures that give the score a completely different dimension and are very effective.

The finale of the score starts with an intense suspense sequence, “The Whole Place Is Wired/She’s Hot Ray,” which sees Barry putting both main themes through the wringer amid a series of threatening-sounding passages for long-lined strings and rapped snares, before “Get To Hell Out Of Here” explodes with a final flourish of brassy goodness and a luscious reprise of Ray’s theme. The conclusive cue, which boasts the ridiculously unwieldy title “You Bastard/How Do You Feel?/Better!/Did You Call Me/Finale,” offers a final statement of the sultry love theme for Ray and May that is just beautiful. Unfortunately, Barry’s full end credits vocal performance of the theme was removed from the film in favor of a needle drop of Gloria Estefan’s “Turn the Beat Around,” which prompted Barry to call the head of Warner’s music department a wanker in a public interview, and forever soured his relationship with the studio.

Despite it actually being a 1990s high octane action/thriller, anyone expecting a 1990s high octane action/thriller sound for The Specialist will be disappointed. This is a lush, jazzy, sometimes erotic, but mostly understated score that takes most of its emotional cues from Ray’s morose personality, and from the steamy sexual relationship that develops between Ray and May. There are one or two moments of James Bond-style espionage suspense, but these are the exceptions rather than the rule; as such, this will appeal much more to those who enjoy John Barry’s moody, seductive jazz sound. Personally I have always adored that aspect of his music, so I think it’s superb.

Buy the Specialist soundtrack from the Movie Music UK Store

Track Listing:

• Main Title (1:41)
• Bogota 1984 (2:48)
• The Specialist in Miami (2:34)
• May Finds Ray at the Cemetery (1:52)
• May Dances With Tomas/Did You Call Me (2:35)
• Ray Covers May/Did You Call Me (2:37)
• After Tomas (2:57)
• The First Bomb/Ray’s Place (2:57)
• Explosive Trent (1:57)
• The Parking Lot Bomb (2:32)
• Don’t Touch Me Ned/Bomb For Tomas (3:17)
• The Death of Tomas (2:07)
• May’s Room/Did You Call Me (1:27)
• Ray Meets May At Her Funeral (2:34)
• Let’s See That Beautiful Face/Did You Call Me (2:43)
• Closing In On Ray (2:57)
• There Goes The Hotel Room/The Fight (2:20)
• May Meets Joe/I’m Not A Woman You Can Trust (2:59)
• You Go In and Get Him/Did You Call Me (4:05)
• The Whole Place Is Wired/She’s Hot Ray (3:26)
• Get To Hell Out Of Here (2:15)
• You Bastard/How Do You Feel?/Better!/Did You Call Me/Finale (2:09)

Epic Records 477810-2 (1994)

Running Time: 56 minutes 49 seconds

Music composed and conducted by John Barry. Orchestrations by Greig McRitchie. Featured musical soloists Mike Lang and Ronny Lang. Recorded and mixed by Shawn Murphy. Edited by Cliff Kohlweck. Album produced by John Barry.