Review of Cobra (1986) by Adam F — 01 Aug 2013

The best way to describe the action film "Cobra" is by pulling a quote straight from the film: "This thing's so far out of control I don't know where to start". The characters are razor-thin, the plot is so simple it feels like the script was written by watering down the synopsis of another action movie and the action is so over-the-top it becomes comical. Sylvester Stallone plays Marion Cobretti a.k.a. Cobra. He's a cop so bold he doesn't need anything to defeat crime, except for those people that believe in things like "due process", "innocent until proven guilty" and "nonlethal force" to stand out of the way. How much of a badass is this guy? Well let's put it this way: When Batman goes in to confront criminals, he brings high-tech gadgets and body armor but all Cobra needs is a gun. Arrests? That just gets in the way of true justice. Interrogating suspects? There's no such thing as suspects, only parasites, plaguing our society! When those regular cops run out of options, like when a man with a gun starts going nuts inside a grocery store, they call him in to get the job done. The story follows Cobra as he tries to protect Ingrid Knudsen (Brigitte Nielsen) from a cult of ravenous serial killers. These killers are everywhere and have been butchering citizens left and right because they believe in killing the weak and leaving only the strongest alive to rule the world. These guys are everywhere so Stalone has to figure out how to take them out and keep his eyes open to make sure everyone he confides in is trustworthy.

Our protagonist is incredibly bland. Aside from the fact that Cobra is able to get away with anything, killing suspects, getting into wild car chases, disobeying orders and there are never any repercussions we don't know anything about him. Well ok, to say that there are no repercussions isn't entirely true because the film has to have a big action climax where he has to square off against the cultists so the plot demands that the higher ups scold him and chew him out eventually. Sure the guy comes off as the ultimate action here, expertly taking out bad guys left and right but he doesn't come off as very bright. There is a scene where Cobra is in the same car as Knudsen (Cobra's personal car, who's license reads "AWESOM 5" and is equipped with your standard police nitro acceleration system) when the two of them are suddenly attacked. What does Cobra do? Well he gets into a high-speed action sequence of course, with oil tankers blowing up, crashing through windows and causing thousands of dollars worth in property damage. He's the kind of cop that rebels against the rules so much that he keeps his house nice and tidy but just to be a bad ass, he uses scissors to cut his cold pizza, not a knife.

Well ok, so our main character is the kind of police officer that only exists in ridiculous action movies, what about our antagonist? Well most of the plot of the film centers the investigation looking to find a cult of mysterious killers that is plaguing the city. The very prolific kind of serial killers that manage to kill 16 civilians in 30 days and yet show no distinct pattern (well, unless you count the fact that they always murders the victims with knives or other sharp objects a pattern). Even these killers don't act consistently though. In some scenes, they take elaborate measures to cover their tracks, in other they just walk around butchering people without their masks on. As for the love interest, she has no personality besides being a victim and when it comes to the side characters, every police officer that isn't carrying grenades (so everyone besides Cobra) is completely ineffective and only stands in the way.

The plot is frequently padded out with over-the-top action sequences (including a long battle inside a flame, molten metal and spark factory) and scenes that feel like bizarre music videos. The movie has no internal logic whatsoever and includes some lines that are so bad they're impossible not to laugh at and are truly unforgettable ("You're a disease and I'm the cure" and "You wasted a kid... for nothing. Now I think it's time to waste you!"). The one good thing that can be said about the movie is that most of the film falls into the "so bad it's good" category. It's an action movie that's so preposterous and so ham-fisted with it's message that it becomes hilarious. Five minutes in you'll already be tired of the message the film is trying to sell: that standard police procedures aren't enough to deal with crime that is plaguing our seemingly ever-increasingly violent society. The body count is through the roof, the action sequences are numerous and almost always pointless, there are a ton of plot holes and inconsistencies and as a ridiculous action film it's a riot.

"Cobra" is one of the worst police films you will ever see and it's so catastrophically inept that it inadvertently becomes one of the greatest action comedies ever. Everything you want in a bad action film is here: ridiculous, exaggerated villains, cheesy dialogue that's quotable and hilarious, gratuitous, pointless violence, a ludicrous climax and some genuinely good actors giving terrible performances. If it wasn't for the lack of gratuitous nudity, it would be the perfect bad action flick but as is, it's damn near close. As a film, it's pretty bad but as an experience with your friends laughing at it, it's pure gold. (Dvd, April 23, 2013).