Cobra (1986)

Director: George P. Cosmatos

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Brigitte Nielsen, Reni Santoni, Andrew Robinson, Brian Thompson, John Herzfeld, Lee Garlington, Art LaFleur, Marco Rodriquez

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Crime is the disease. Meet the Cure.

Plot: A gang of neo-fascist thugs, led by the self-proclaimed 'Night Slasher', are breaking into people's homes & cars, then killing them at random. When of of these thugs holds up a food store & takes hostages, Lt. Marian Cobretti - an intense, take-no-prisoners cop, is brought onto the scene to end the hostage-taking. Ranting bizarrely about a 'New World', the man levels a sawed-off shotgun at Cobretti, who hits him with a knife, then guns him down when the man refuses to put down his weapon. Later that night, another murder occurs, attributed to the Night Slasher - and the next day, another one. This one is witnessed by a young woman, Ingrid Knutsen. She drives away before the thugs can kill her, but it isn't long before some creepy-looking people start making attempts on her life - and Cobretti's. Cobretti plans to move the only witness to the blood spree upstate, but with inside information, the thugs follow them. And a battle for survival rages between Cobretti and the thugs...

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.


I love Stallone. I'm going through his catalog as I didn't see most of them growing up. I was a Schwarzenegger fan and saw a bunch of his 80s flicks in the theater instead. Back then I though Stallone's movies looked dumb (as if Arnold's weren't). A lot of you may agree but some of these have a high entertainment value. COBRA is cheesy fun with an over the top tough cop who spits out one liners and does lots of crazy shit. These movies are filled with cliches, many of them were still being formed around this time, but it doesn't matter. Some of them, like this one, were made for one reason (besides making shitloads of dough) and that's to entertain. I had a really fun time with this one.

HERE'S A GREAT SCENE WITH
A FEW MEMORABLE LINES

Dirtbag: I've got a bomb and I'm going to blow this whole place up!
Cobra: Go ahead, I don't shop here.


Ahahahahahaha. Classic. Stallone cracked me up. I'm a HUGE fan of the now defunct Adult Swim cartoon, ASSY MCGEE (2006) (I would pay good money to help get that show back on), and I couldn't help but see where some of that show's inspiration came from. There were lines Sylvester threw out that I'd swear I was hearing Assy and not him, especially when he called someone a dirtbag. Goddamn that was funny.


Ooh, then there's that poor classic car that gets beat to hell and back. Man, that was painful. I really dug this flick. It's ridiculous, fun and gives you a pretty good bang for your buck. I'm just sorry it took me 25 years to get around to it. Crap, I almost forgot...Brigitte Nielsen is terrible. It's plain to see that she had to marry Stallone to get into films (sadly her movie career didn't end as quickly as their year and a half marriage did). Woof.