Directed by: George P. Cosmatos
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Brigitte Nielsen, Reni Santoni, Andrew Robinson, Art LaFleur, Brian Thompson
Sylvester Stallone peppered in some movies in between the Rocky sequels and the Rambo films in the mid-1980s. Cobra is probably the best of them. The others that come to mind include Rhinestone (1984) and Over the Top (1987), both of which likely would be left off any Stallone career retrospectives. In Cobra, Stallone is an LA cop who tracks a serial killer/member of a wider organization bent on killing many more people as part of "a new world". The organization meets only at night and in poorly lit places. Considering their overall objective of violence and chaos, this is probably wise. Their agenda is ambitious, if unrealistic.
Stallone plays Marion Cobretti (aka Cobra) with equal parts snarl and tough guy voice mimicking Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry. Oddly, the guy who played the creep Harry blows away at the end of Dirty Harry also plays a cop here. Cobra wears sunglasses and is forever wearing a five o'clock shadow while chewing on a toothpick, but he has a soft spot for a potential victim he must protect (Nielsen), who was Stallone's real-life wife at the time. And he doesn't like guys leaning on his car. "It's bad for your health," he tells such an offender. The guy cockily responds, "What?" Cobra replies, "Me."
Many of the other actors play the straight man to Cobra's one liners. ("You're a disease, I'm the cure"). But he has a nice, familiar rhythm with his partner Gonzalez (Santoni), who is just about the opposite of Cobra in every way, including a love for sweets. Ingrid, the aforementioned potential victim, is also able to get Cobra to let his guard down in one of the few quiet scenes the movie contains. The rest involves car chases, guns, knife play, and fistfights, plus a baddie who meets his end in one of those factories or mills where sparks fly around and molten liquid is just a few feet away. The place is helpfully vacant as Cobra chases the guy there and they have their fight. There is also a large hook that doesn't seem to serve any other purpose except for someone to eventually be impaled on it.
Such movies are inherently silly. If you are looking for realism or originality, you've arrived at the wrong movie. But, Cobra is actually paced well and is better than your average shoot-'em-up. The villains are evil I would surely watch this over Rocky IV, Rocky V, or Rambo II or III, if that makes the makers of Cobra feel any better.
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