By Connor Carlbom
Aurum Staff
Cobra is a 1980’s action film starring Sylvester Stallone and Brigitte Neilson. Need I say any more? Those of you who will actually go out and see this movie are probably convinced by now that you will like it. And those of you with no sense of humor will have already dismissed it. But, I figure I might as well try and convince you.
Stallone plays a loose-cannon cop on the edge named Marion Cobretti, or Cobra for short. Cobra’s job is to drive around in a muscle car and spout one-liners. Things start to get complicated for our man Cobra when a wave of brutal crime sweeps Los Angeles attributed to a man called “The Night Slasher.” On one fateful night, a young model named Ingrid (attractive, huh?) witnesses the Night Slasher and his gang murder a woman and soon the chase is on. Ingrid is placed under the protection of Cobra who decides to move her upstate and hopefully away from the killing-spree. The Slasher and company have other plans and follow them, leading to a huge and ridiculous climax.
There is no better way to describe this movie other than “ridiculous” and in this case, it’s not a bad thing. You’ve got crazy guys ranting about “the New World order” and great cheesy lines, “You’re the disease; I’m the cure.” There’s a chase scene at the end with about a million guys on dirt bikes. Stallone completely DESTROYS a truck with a submachine gun. And to top it all off, there is about a five minute long scene of the Slasher yelling at Cobra asking him to “Go to hell with me, PIG!”
If you’ve ever seen Dirty Harry, this movie is essentially a worse version of it. There’s the inept administration unwilling to take the hard-line against the killers, a no-rules cop with a Hispanic partner, and they’ve even got Andrew Robinson, who plays the main-villain, Scorpio in Dirty Harry. But while it may not be as good as the Clint Eastwood classic, it’s still a fine piece of entertainment in its own right. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is a fan of silly 80’s action flicks.
On a final note, this movie has probably the worst villain death I’ve ever seen in a movie. It’s sadistic beyond what you would expect. I’m not gonna give it away, but you’ve just got to see it to believe it.
