I swear to God like 60 % of synthwave videos on YouTube use this as the background image for the video.
(Sorry this took so long, I got sick and didn't feel like writing.)
The now defunct production company Cannon Films cranked out a diverse array of b-movies in the 80's and early 90's, from sex comedies to musicals to science fiction to horror to fantasy. However their bread and butter was over the top action movies like today's film Cobra. The story behind this movie is pretty interesting. You see, Sylvester Stallone was originally offered the lead role of in Paramount's Beverly Hills Cop but he insisted on rewriting the script and changing the movie from a comedy to a gritty Dirty Harry rip-off. The studio balked at this and Sly got taken off the project but that didn't deter him.
No, instead he went to Cannon, took his ideas for Beverly Hills Cop and mixed in story elements from Paula Gostling's novel A Running Duck (enough for her to get a writing credit) to write the script for Cobra. Not only did Stallone write and star in this movie but he directed most of the movie instead of the credited director George P. Cosmatos. When he wasn't fraternizing with co-star and then girlfriend Brigitte Nielson that is.
Stallone's derivative ego trip originally ran for 130 (!) minutes long and featured so much graphic violence that it was edited to both shorten the running time and to avoid the "X" rating. They made the wise decision to cut out 90 % of the character development, backstory and all that other wussy shit to make this 87 minute action extravaganza of batshit insanity.
Recap:
We open with a shot of someone off-screen holding a gun against a red background. You know, just like the opening of Magnum Force. At least Stallone's being upfront right off the bat about this movie being a blatant Dirty Harry rip-off. Also you gotta love the irony of an anti-due process movie ripping off a movie where vigilante cops are the bad guys.
Then we cut to shots of men in suits standing around clanging axes together in unison inside a drained swimming pool for no reason (get used to this, this movie likes randomly cutting to this.). Not only is this intercut with a silhouetted figure riding a motorcycle but this opening credits sequence feels like it was edited by a schizophrenic, what with all the random and unnecessary camera angle changes and editing tricks (the image even flips upside down at one point).
The motorcycle driver stops in front of a grocery store, walks inside, pulls out a gun and starts unloading on every shopper, milk jug and chip bag in sight. Since this is an 80's action movie, anything he hits tends to explode. The gunman takes everyone hostage and demands a news crew because...I dunno, that's what happens in every other 80's action movie?
Let's see here: foreign, squinty eyed, goateed, always scowling, 1986...yep, he's a bad guy.The cops don't know how to handle the situation so they send in Lt. Marion "Cobra" Cobretti
played of course by Stallone. And yes, our main character's name really is "Cobra" in case you were under the delusion that this movie would have any degree of subtlety (also "Mario Cobretti" sounds like the name a drag queen would have).
Cobra is part of the LAPD's "Zombie Squad" which is described as "the bottom line in police enforcement". Oddly enough, Cobra is well respected by the chief and he never gets a "You're a loose cannon, you're off the case!" scene from him despite how many clichés this movie uses.
To show off what an expert negotiator he is, Cobra strolls into the store and loudly announces that he'll kill the gunman first chance he gets. Surprisingly the crazed hostage holding, gun toting murderer who raves about "the new world order!" while carrying a bomb on him doesn't take this so well and shoots at him. Luckily there's a display of perfect, delicious, mouth watering, life saving Pepsi to protect him as well as a conveniently placed can of even more perfect, delicious, mouth watering, life saving Coors for him to guzzle down. This is the first 10 minutes of a Cannon Films action movie so as you'd expect Cobra manages to kill the gunman without setting the bomb off, endangering any of the hostages or facing any repercussions more severe than getting bitched at by Detective Monte (Andrew Robinson).
This 1 shot gives Mac and Me a run for its money in terms of product placement.Cobra goes home after all that and this next bit is 1 of the most inexplicable things I've see in any movie and that's saying something comin' from me. Cobra takes out a box of pizza and an egg box from the fridge, grabs a pair of scissors, cuts the tip off of the 1 slice of pizza in the box, opens the egg carton, pulls out cleaning supplies for his gun (which has a cobra painted on the handle, naturally) and turns on the news. Let me repeat this: Cobra watches TV while wearing shades, eating frozen pizza with scissors and cleaning his special cobra gun with supplies he keeps in a egg box. I love this movie.
"Pizza" pizza, brought to you by the same people behind "Beer" beer!We learn from the news that a serial killer dubbed "the Night Slasher" (good band name) has murdered his 16th victim and that he's an equal opportunity serial killer: there's no pattern to any of his victims and he just kills people indiscriminately. The Night Slasher (Brian Thompson) is actually the leader of the axe clangers from earlier and they're part of a organization named "the New World" that's dedicated to taking over the world. How they plan to do this by murdering random people in L.A. is a mystery.
1 night the Slasher and his goons are witnessed by model Ingrid Knudsen (Brigitte Nielson) during the scene of a murder. Actually she doesn't witness a damn thing other than Brian Thompson standing on the road and creepily staring at her which is apparently incriminating enough for the Slasher and his henchwoman Lt. Stalk to consider her too dangerous to live. Also really? Her name's Lt. Stalk? Why not name her character something more subtle like "Lt. Scary Von Evilbad"?
If you're not going to hide your face why wear a mask?Cobra and his sidekick Sgt. Gonzalez (Reni Santoni) are assigned to the Night Slasher case and we transition to the obligatory 80's action montage. This is edited even more schizophrenically than the opening, cutting between the axe clangers doing their thing, Brian Thompson sharpening a knife, Gonzalez and Cobra running around the seedy parts of L.A. questioning people (why are there still people on the streets when there's a killer on the loose that's murdered 17 people? Shouldn't there be a curfew or something?) and my personal favorite bit of randomness: Ingrid doing a sexy photo shoot with robots.
This is still nowhere near as out of left field as the robot from Rocky IV.After the sexy robot photo shoot wraps up Ingrid and her sleazy photographer are ambushed by the Night Slasher. I'd question how a 6'3 guy with pantyhose on his face carrying an axe could sneak up on anybody but I'm too busy wondering why the Slasher decided to bring 2 goons with him. Like, does he think it'd be too difficult for him to kill an unarmed supermodel by himself? Before the idiot brigade can get her though, they're scared off by the sound of police sirens. Ingrid is taken to the hospital and put into protective custody. She gives Cobra and Gonzalez a description of the Night Slasher and confirms that he has accomplices, 2 things she wouldn't have been able to do if the axe clangers had just left her the hell alone. Cobra tells his superiors that there's more than 1 killer and he theorizes that they're getting info from a police informant but they don't believe him.
Cobra leaves to check something at his apartment, allowing the Night Slasher (sans goons) to sneak into the hospital, kills a janitor and steals his clothes. Somehow nobody notices that the janitor suddenly went from a scrawny Hispanic dude to a hulking 6 foot tall white guy. The Night Slasher attacks Ingrid but she manages to evade him and eventually scare him off with a fire alarm.
Are you really surprised that the outside of Cobra's apartment has a giant, glowing neon Pepsi sign?Meanwhile Cobra gets attacked by some of the axe clangers and kills them. Cobra, Gonzalez and Lt. Stalk try taking Ingrid to a safehouse in another town. And even though the sole reason they were after Ingrid in the first place is because she saw the Night Slasher's face and could identify him, the Slasher and his goons decide to get into a car chase with Cobra and try to blow him away on the road in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses. Cobra kills the goons and heads back to the station.
Cobra tells the chief what happened and he and Monte still think the idea there's more than 1 killer is utterly ridiculous. Um, who do they think those goons were then? Do they seriously think that the drive-by shooters that chased Cobra around in their car and caused a massive pile-up on the road a day after the Night Slasher attacked is just a coincidence?
Anyway they decide to stick to the original plan (making the last 2 scenes pointless) so they start driving to the safehouse. I'm gonna level with you here: not much happens for the next 15-20 minutes. Not much worth recapping anyway. There's only 3 things you need to know. 1: Cobra and Ingrid are madly in love and are planning on getting together even though they've known each other for maybe a couple of hours. 2: Cobra starts suspecting Lt. Stalk is up to something and 3: Eventually they end up at a motel.
Stalk formally reveals her true colors as she and 30 other New World goons storm the motel and the town it's in. In broad daylight. In front of dozens of witnesses. When they were so concerned about Ingrid offhandedly glancing at Brian Thompson's face as he was just standing on the side of the road that they made killing her priority # 1. Jesus, the axe clangors are more inept than Fuad Ramses!
TBH as much as I jokingly refer to the New World as "the axe clangors" we never actually see these guys outside of these insert shots they keep sprinkling randomly throughout the movie.Luckily Cobra somehow knew that this was going to happen and stayed up all night to prepare for it (what is he, Batman?). What follows is 1 of the greatest most insane third acts of b-grade action movie history as Cobra massacres so many goons that both Rambo and Robocop would tell him to tone it down a notch. It's glorious. Our main man stabs goons, mows them down with gunfire, blows them up with grenades (where did he get those?) and he even lights a dude on fire. You wanna know how many people he kills in this movie? I counted them all: he slaughters a grand total of 52 people. Which is more kills than Leatherface has in the entire Texas Chainsaw Massacre series. Most of these kills happen during the third act and it's the highlight of the movie.
Eventually Cobra and Ingrid wind up at the axe clangar's factory after Cobra kills all the goons. The Night Stalker shows up and rambles for a bit. Just marvel at his brilliant dialogue:
The Night Slasher: "Let's bleed pig! I want your eyes pig! I want them! You wanna go to hell? Huh??? Huh pig!? You wanna go to hell with me? Doesn't matter, does it? We are the hunters! We kill the weak so the strong survive! You can't stop the new world. Your filthy society will never get rid of people like us! It's breeding them! We are the future!"
Cobra points his gun at him. Despite the fact that Cobra has brutally slaughtered every single 1 of his goons (he burnt a dude alive!) the Slasher goes on and on in the typical cliché manner about how Cobra won't pull the trigger because he's an officer of the law and"the law is civilized". Cobra's response?
Cobra: "This is where the law stops...and I start...SUCKER".
The two enter their final showdown and Cobra kills the Night Slasher the only way he can: by beating the shit out of him, impaling him on a hook and kicking him into a furnace. I'm surprised he didn't kill him with the refreshing cool taste of Pepsi.
Alls well that ends well. The day is saved, the chief congratulates Cobra on a job well done, Gozalez lives after having accomplished nothing the whole movie, Cobra punches Monte in the face and Ingrid and Cobra ride on a motorcycle into the sunset. Because only in a movie like this could you kill 52 people, assault a fellow officer and not have to do a single bit of paperwork over it.
Review:
This is 1 of my favorite "so bad it's good" action movies of the 80's. There's a reason this movie has a big cult following and it's not because it's some underrated gem of action cinema. Its dated as all hell, sleazy, nonsensical, cartoonishly over the top and just plain ridiculous from beginning to end. It's like Commando if Commando took itself deathly seriously. Highly recommended.
Rating: 4/4.
