Ned's motives are a little foggy, but it's clear that he wants to do something unpleasant to Ray, and he wields enough clout to get almost the entire Miami police force behind him in his search for the elusive specialist. This movie is excruciatingly dumb. And, given the releases of Speed and Blown Away this summer, there's no dearth of explosion-based motion pictures. The atmosphere of The Specialist is peculiar. The cinematographer clearly has a sense of style far in excess of what's warranted for this movie.
Several scenes take place in misty surroundings, and the overall mood is relentlessly grim.
No one appears to be having fun, least of all the actors. All of them, that is, except James Woods. His acting is as far overboard as the director allows, and that's quite a distance. This sort of manic display is actually entertaining to watch, primarily because everything else offered by The Specialist is so bland and dreary. It's always a bad sign when the most impressive feature of a motion picture is its visual effects.