Jake Ferris (Dolly Parton) is the top draw at the New York City honkytonk Rhinestone. The club’s owner is a tone deaf slimeball named Freddie Ugo. Freddie appears to be a 9-year-old boy trapped inside the body of actor Rob Leibman, but we’re supposed to believe he runs a top venue for country western music in New York City.

In the movie’s one funny bit, Freddie’s new discovery (Rusty Buchanan) gets on stage and bombs, singing “The Day My Baby Died,” a ditty about his true love getting drug under a tractor. Jake bets her boss that she could take any normal person and make them a country singer. Neither Leibman, his honkytonk, or movies based on bets are believable, but Dolly Parton has charm to spare and makes it work.

Then Sylvester Stallone makes his entrance. He plays Nick Martinelli, a one-dimensional likeness of a cab driver as controlled by someone playing a video game about out-of-control cab drivers. He wrecks his cab while gawking at Jake. She offers to pay for repairs if he’ll allow her to groom him into a country singer so she can break out of her contract.

Jake takes her project home to Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee for a crash course in how to be a cowboy. Nick fashions some of the worst T-shirts ever seen – most of them sleeveless – and runs afoul with Jake’s ex (Tim Thomerson). For some reason, no one hangs Nick from a tree. Instead, he receives sage advice from Jake’s father, played by the late, great Richard Farnsworth. Sparks fly between Nick and Jake, and Stallone sings. At least, that was the plan.

Directed by Bob Clark and written by Phil Alden Robinson and Stallone, Rhinestone failed to recoup its $28 million budget at the box office and is on the short list of movies Stallone recently went public saying he wishes he never appeared in. Other examples included Driven, Detox and Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot! Stallone has little to personally apologize for in regards to most of those movies. They would have all been disasters no matter who starred in them.

Rhinestone was different. It started as a spec script that was so well received, Phil Alden Robinson was asked to write the Steve Martin-Lily Tomlin comedy All Of Me, as well as doctor the screenplay for Fletch. Parton signed on as the female lead and Creative Artists Agency – who packaged the film – suggested Fox take another one of their clients as the male lead.

Once Stallone got involved, he began rewriting the script. Texture was removed, characters altered, and his own role enlarged. He selected Don Zimmerman – editor of Rocky III – to direct. Zimmerman had no experience running a set and discovered he had no real power, to change the script or get through to Stallone, who preferred to direct himself. Zimmerman was fired three weeks into filming and Bob Clark was brought in to deliver the movie no questions asked.

Stallone is painfully insecure in every second of his screen time, but instead of accepting help, he nearly shoves Parton and everyone else out of frame. Stallone hogs the spotlight, but doesn’t do anything with it. He’s not funny. He doesn’t create a sympathetic, believable character. He doesn’t know how to perform music. He might have died suddenly like Steven Seagal in Executive Decision, but instead, sticks around through the end credits.

Parton weathered the disaster well, maintaining that her work on the soundtrack album – which includes two Top 10 country singles – is some of her best ever. None of that love for country western made it into the movie, which is miserable to endure. Once Stallone makes his entrance, itâ’s like that nanny show that captures emotionally disturbed brats in the act of terrorizing a family. And here, Mary Poppins never rings the doorbell to clean house.