Original title: Cobra Year: 1986 Director: George P. Cosmotos Screenplay: Paula Gosling, Sylvester Stallone With: Sylvester Stallone, Brigitte Nielsen, Reni Santoni, Brian Thompson, Art LaFleur, David Rasche Duration: 87 min. Grade: 6/10
Hello friends, this is my first time so treat me kindly, today I bring you an action classic from the 80's cinema. I say "classic" in the sense that Cobra (1986) is one of the movies that one remembers and immediately identifies with the decade in question, but in no way are we talking about an incomparable jewel of the seventh art, are we? The film takes elements from two Clint Eastwood films: Dirty Harry (1971) and The Gauntlet (1977).
As for the casting, Cobra has two recycled actors from the first film in the Dirty Harry series: Reni Santoni and Andrew Robinson. The latter was in that movie the sniper Scorpio, who randomly killed civilians with his rifle and demanded a large ransom from the town hall. Santoni was Harry Callahan's long-suffering partner. Fifteen years later, we've got them both playing cops.
Cobra also recycles the basic idea of that film: that of the tough, trigger-happy policeman who kills whatever villain crosses his path. Of course, unlike Clint Eastwood, Stallone does not wear a tie. It also reuses the premise of The Gauntlet, in which Eastwood has to protect Sondra Locke so that she makes it to court intact to testify. Spoiler alert: she doesn't arrive quite intact, as Eastwood showers her with a few kisses. The Gauntlet was made again in 2006 under the title 16 Blocks, with Bruce Willis protecting Mos Def, but this time without giving it a single bite.
And of course, we have Brigitte Nielsen, the femme fatale of the moment, who knew how to have her five minutes of fame thanks to having been married to Stallone and the rumors about the causes of her eventual divorce. In addition to Cobra, Nielsen appears in Rocky IV (1985) as Drago's wife. His other best known films are Red Sonja (1985) and Beverly Hills Cop II (1987).
The protagonist is called Marion Cobretti. Yes, Marion and not Mario, as a tribute to John Wayne, who in real life was called Marion Robert Morrison, 10 years after his death. The aesthetic of the film is extremely eighties, and the movie is a time capsule of that decade. For example…
The final sequence takes place in one of those factories in which fire and smoke are manufactured, so frequent in the films of the time.
Incidental music is by Sylvester LeVay, the same composer of the iconic theme from the Airwolf tv series. There are also some pop themes here and there, put in to give the film a music video feel similar to that of Miami Vice, the successful tv series of that time.
Nielsen's photographer friend is played by David Rasche, who would become famous in those years with the series Sledge Hammer!, in which he would play a parody version of Dirty Harry.
Is it good, is it bad? You decide. If I wake up in a good mood, I'll say it's a B movie; if I get up in a bad mood, I'll say it's class Z, or at best a mediocre made for TV movie. It can be enjoyed if your expectations are extremely low and you are a Stallone fan.
Normally I tend to have a little more consideration with these types of movies, since, despite being bad and/or trite, they entertain me. This is not the case, despite the fact that there are the occasional fight scene and a chase that would undoubtedly partly inspire the parody of Schwarzenegger in Last Action Hero (1994). I am afraid that this is one of those films that one remembers with more affection than necessary, simply because when we saw it in the cinema we were young and had more hair than today.
You can't take this movie seriously, this is pure 80s cinema
